BEYOND 
DISILLUSION 

BY • W^ • NORMAN 
GUTHKIE 



A- DRAMATIC • STUDY 

OF-MODEPvN 

MARRIAGE 



MANHATTAN 

THE • PETRUS • STUYVESANDT 

BOOK- GUILD 

19 15 




Book ' E-^^^ 

Copyright }|° - ^ '' 5 



COnfRIGHT DEPOSm 



Beyond Disillusion 



A DRAMATIC STUDY 
OF MODERN MARRIAGE 



BY 



William Norman Guthrie 




The Petrus Stuyvesandt Book Guild 

at St. Mark's in-the-Bouwerie 

Manhattan 



03 






coptiught 1915 
By Wm. Noeman Gtjthbie 



/^ 



JUN i7 1915 

©GI,A401438 



FOREWORD 

NO QUESTION is more interesting to us in America than 
that of the perpetuation of the family. With the constant 
insistence npon the rights of the individual, not only to life, but 
to happiness, we find ourselves forgetting the value of hardship and 
discipline to the individual himself. We are disposed to regard 
all higher engagements and contracts in the light of their imme- 
diate reaction, gauged in terms of pleasure. There is with us still 
operative a goodly amount of the old utilitarian philosophy, which 
mingles most singularly with a popularized Darwinism. 

No wonder then our ideals of marriage are somewhat vague. 
And yet withal we are a conservative people, loyal and very senti- 
mental. We are not prepared to jeopardize the old home virtues, 
at least not to confess that we do. So our conscience is divided and 
our mind confused, in all that concerns the hearth and the cradle. 

Most of the discussion of marriage which has taken dramatic 
form has seemed to be, on the whole, negative and destructive, not 
only because it is far easier to criticise than to create, but because 
the art form of drama itself makes any positive presentment of 
human interests, which cannot come to adequate expression in sud- 
den acts or explosions of passion, extraordinarily difficult, not to say 
impossible. Even an Ibsen, past master of the craft, and a genius 
to boot, can carry his argument successfully to the slamming of the 
door and the exit of the lady and the bewildered reaction of the hus- 
band, as in the Doll's House, but he is not able to make himself 
anything like so well understood when he struggles with the subtler 
problem of the master builder's soul, or even John Gabriel Bork- 
mann's; and much less yet can he make his point when, as in 
When We Dead Awaken, he suggests through unconventional and 
futile rebellion a reconsideration of the requisites for an honorable 
and psychologically and sociologically valuable marriage. In other 
words, the dramatist finds it necessary to cast his prophecy of a 
better order in the form of a retrospective criticism of pathetic 
might-have-beens; and the public is only too apt to rise from the 
performance or the reading of even so clearly reasoned a drama 



FOREWORD 



as any of Henrik Ibsen's masterpieces, with the happy or unhappy 
sense that an excellent argument has been presented for the negative. 

The present play endeavors to make such a misunderstand- 
ing of its purpose impossible. The writer has resorted to what 
may seem an improbable solution of his problem, thinking it 
far less serious to be taxed with improbability in plot, consider- 
ing how very extraordinary are the happenings of life, than to 
have the ideal purpose of his work miscarry. Not only are all pos- 
sible solutions of any problem probable, but, with a little observa- 
tion of life unbiased by past artistic conventions, they are far more 
frequently actual than anyone could imagine. Many and many a 
separation and divorce has been silently settled in experience; not 
always, to be sure, so happily as in the plot of the present play, 
but the writer does not anticipate or desire to forecast an average 
probability. He would fain make clear to his reader and per- 
haps his spectator (if the play is fortunate enough, against all 
likelihood, to find presentation) what is to him the poetic and re- 
ligious presupposition of an enduring partnership. 

It is strange that our ritual oflBces, which undertake to sol- 
emnize and sanctify marriage, never inquire into the state of mind 
of the individuals concerned; only induce them to make certain 
promises, which they cannot possibly realize are wholly beyond hu- 
man power to fulfil, without a suggestion of the difficulties they 
have naturally enough never considered. Perhaps a marriage office 
that should ask of the bridegroom and the bride respectively 
whether they were prepared, nay, passionately eager, to be crucified 
on the cross which the other should represent, because of a holy 
devotion to the ideal of fellowship and loyalty, and the devout hope 
of offspring better than themselves, and of a nobler civilization to 
supersede that of their generation — perhaps such a marriage office 
would be regarded as imprudently deterrant, pessimistic, not to 
say, humorous 1 And yet anyone who knows life and loves life 
must clearly realize that all true joys are purchased at the cost of 
great pains, and sometimes our highest triumphs imply our deepest 
preparatory humiliations. No noble doctrine of marriage or of any 
other human relation can be set up and maintained in actual life 



FOREWORD 



without severe strain, without individual and social sacrifice; and 
the only question for us to decide is : whether the particular doc- 
trine deserves the strain and the sacrifice, and whether we can at 
all get along without the doctrine, and have life still seem to us 
tolerable in our moments of spiritual elevation above the pettily 
personal and transient. 

Briefly put then, this play is an effort to present vitally, 
tlirough the actions and reactions of human beings, under sig- 
nificant conditions, what seems to the writer a constructive sug- 
gestion, a valid consecration, a worthy conception of sacrifice. Just 
because the individual is sacred the individual must cheerfully 
endure whatever hardship is requisite to keep him true to his 
highest ideal of human relationship. 

It would be incorrect to say that this play was conceived and 
written with the view to pressing home a particular doctrine. 
Rather, it was an effort at a synthetic vision of the human strug- 
gle which had been, with keen, sometimes aching sympathy, ob- 
served as presented fragmentarily in a number of cruel cases 
which fascinated the author. The judgments reached upon attain- 
ing to this synthetic vision were not clearly foreseen when the 
material was first decided upon and the preliminary efforts at iia 
subdual for artistic uses undertaken. 

A preface is always a precarious undertaking. It teUs too much 
or too little. It is apt to confuse the artistic issue with personal 
considerations. The writer, in this case, has no apology to make. 
He but desires to share his creative joys and pains with the like- 
minded, whoever they may be, and to present to those who diifler 
from him his own best effort at dramatic thinking — thinking that is 
not abstract, but human; a thinking that proceeds not from syllo- 
gism to syllogism, but through actual human souls and destiniea— 
the only sort of thinking that in the long run can help to solve any 
question as human as this one, which baffles alike the advocate of 
authority and the unmystical rationalist ui our age. 



REGISTER OF ACTS 

I. The Happy Family 3 

II. The Eviction of the Aetist 21 

III. Mother ob Woman 53 

IV. Meeting Their Deepeb Selves 87 



REGISTER OF PERSONS 

ACT I. 

RicHAED Walter (35) Architect 

Latiba (32) His Wife 

Dick (13) 

Fredebika (11) ^^ Their Children 

Evelyn (9) 
Cedeic (5) 

MoTHEB Walteb His Mother 

Aethtje McAbthub Walter's Assistant 

Edith Dwight Walter's Secretary and Laura's School Friend 

Benedict Gregg Conventional Parish Clergyman 

Marion His Wife, Unreconciled to his calling (Laura's Stepsister) 

Mbs. Mettingham and Five Children Dependents of Laura 

ACT II. 
Helen Daeneill Proposed Client of Walter 

ACT III. 
Mb. Lightfoot Master of Art-Dancing 

ACT IV. 

Thomas Blake. .Far-Western Financier, hopelessly in love with Helen 
William Fosteb Patterson Precious Poet and Press Agent 



A.CT I 
THE HAPPY FAMILY 



ACT I 

Stage directions: Laura seated in a rocking chair hy hearth to 
right; FrederiJca with hacTc to hearth, working at puzzle picture 
at library table — pushes Japanese prints from time to time; 
Walter is seen rummaging in the half-story, sometimes in sight of 
the audience, at the head of the winding stair, then goes back out 
of sight for another print during what follows; Frederika, watch- 
ing for her father's being out of sight, tiptoes with goldfishes across 
room to left rear and places them near window sill on organ. 

Scene 1 

Lauea — IS'ow, Cedric, I do want you to learn this lullaby for 

Father. 
Cedeic (In Mother's lap) — ^Whafs a lullaby, Mother? 
Laura — ^It's a little song you sing to a child; to give it happy 

dreams. 
Cedeic — I'm no child; you needn't sing a lullaby to me. 
Laura — Foolish boy, it's for Father I want you to learn it. He's 

going on a long journey across the sea, and I am sure, when he's 

far away among strangers, he will like to remember how his little 

son sang it to him on his last night at home. 
Feedeeika (Looking over her shoulder sneeringly) — Will the 

lullaby bless Father with happy dreams when he is sea-sick? 
Laura (Paying no attention) — Follow me word for word: 
Who dove or violet 
Hath seen, shaU fear no threat; 
Nor mother for Eden pine 
'With thee, sweet baby mine. 
Feedeeika — ^I guess she won't have leisure to pine for Eden with 

him. Shoot these prints, they do so get in one's way. (Walter 

starts down the winding stair, stops to smile sarcastically on the 

scene.) 
Lauea — Frederika, I've told you again and again not to meddle 

with your father's paraphernalia. 

8 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Frederika — ^You may be sure I wouldn't if thejr'd just quit stub- 
bing my toes. 
La-URA — What have you done with your father's goldfish ? 
Frederika — Hush, Mother; on the organ, 
Laura — ^You know they mean a great deal to him. 
Frederika — They mean silence and peace, don't they? 
Laura — ^Say this after me, line by line, Cedric. Isn't this a lovely 
song, full of peace and quiet? 

In vain would the wind disclose 
A bud of the shy wild rose. 
Though the smile of the morning sky 
Wide open her golden eye. 
Frederika — ^You can't understand that, can you, Cedric ? 
Cedric — Of course I can. I always understand everything. It's 

a golden eye winking at a rose ; there now, big tease. 
Frederika {Laughs ioisterously) — Thafs all you get out of it, 
is it? 

Laura {Trying io keep her temper) — Please don't you interfere 
with Cedric when he's good. Let's try, now, the third stanza. 
Frederika — Stanza? That rhymes with bonanza, Sancho Panza, 
A handsome man's a 

Pare bonanza, 
Witness Apollo and Sancho Panza; 
That's the way to cram a stanza. 
Laura {Severely) — ^Frederika! {Frederika chuckles at her own 
smartness) Don't pay any attention to her, Cedric. 
In vain the earthquake's rage 
And wars the blind seas wage, 
For pearl-shell and daisy — still 
Laugh at their cruel will. 
Cedeic {Drawling loud) — ^li li — ike tha — at. 
Frederika — Of course you do. Earthquakes and seas at sixes and 
sevens, and daisies jigging with a mother-of-pearl! {Enter 
Evelyn with an armful of dolls, walking on tiptoe, humming to 

4 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



herself) Hello there ! Did you rob a church fair ? Give me 
one, won't you, greedy ? 
Evelyn — ^You are too old to play with doUs, Miss Smarty. 

Fredeeika — Do yon think I'd have them ? Dear me, no ! I want 
them for Mother's pets, the Botheringhams. 

Evelyn — They are too good for dirty little brats. My grand- 
mother took a heart-stimulant to finish them, and nervous bother- 
ation whipping lace on their lingerie. {Exhibiting their un- 
derclothes) Don't you wish they were yours? 

Prbderika — No, thank ybu; I prefer my own. 

Evelyn — Sour grapes! 

Latjiia. — For heaven's sake, do keep still, children. 

Evelyn — ^I reaUy didn't know you wanted to talk yourself, Mother. 
{While her mother sing-songs the following stanza, Evelyn slyly 
lays down the dolls on the window seat, then, casting a significant 
looJc at Cedric, moves them into the window sill hy the organ out 
of his reach and tiptoes to his blocks on the floor and begins 
building behind her mother's chair, Cedric restlessly looJcs to 
one side and the other of his mother's chair, and Evelyn dodges 
so he doesn't see her.) 

Laura — ^Say it after me, child, won't you? 

In the drop of the trembling dew 

Cedric — I told you I'm not a child ! 

Fredeeika — No, he's a little "twinkle-twinkle," thaf s what he 
is, the dear ! 

Evelyn {MimicTcing his drawl) — A te — ar and a sta — ar in one. 

Cedric — ^I'll come and pummel you both if you don't stop. 

Laura — Shame on you, girls. Come, come, my little man, say 
it after me ! 

In the drop of the trembling dew 
Doth the sun his glory view; 
And in thee, sweet baby mine. 
Are life and love divine. 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Walter {Passing behind her) — Divine! Ah, yes. Totally divine! 

(Collects a few prints on the table and goes out through the 

conservatory.) 
Laura. (Without turning) — Wto was that? 
Pbederika — Just Father. Didn't enjoy the racket, I imagine. 
Cedric — Leave my blocks alone or I'll smash your dolls ! 
Laura — ^Please, dear, don't get into one of those furious tantrums. 
Cedric — ^I say she sha'n't have my blocks ! 
Laura — If you behave like a generous little gentleman to your 

sister, you may have some candy. 
Cedric — I don't have to behave to get candy. (ShaTcing his fist at 

Evelyn while he talks to his mother.) 
Frederika (Stepping up and looking over Evelyn's shoulder) — 

Whafs this crazy thing you are building, anyway? Father 

would say that it had "no style" ! Mongrel ! Cross between a 

Chinese pagoda and a sky-scraper, unpractical besides. If an 

earthquake came along — see, I'U play earthquake. (Throws 

down the construction with great clatter.) 
•Cedric — (Clapping his hands with glee) — Groody, goody, do it 

again ! 
Evelyn — I'U go straight to my grandma. iShe treats me right. 

You are all big bullies and hoodlums and nasty, greedy goops, 

and 

Feederika (Breads m) — Parallelograms! Eh? Miss Fussy-wussy 

can't appreciate a lesson in practical architecture ? 
Laura — Hush ! Evelyn, you will drive us out of our wits. Why 

will you vex your sister, Frederika? 
Evelyn — I won't hush. I am going to yeU and shriek all I want. 
Frederiea — Just a little object lesson in equilibration. What she 

needs, Mother, is discipline. 
Laura — What of yourseK? 
Frederika — It is too late for mine, I'm afraid; I've missed that 

experience for good and all. (Enter servant with two ex- 
pressmen.) 

6 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Servant — Where are the trunks of Mr. Walter ? 
Laura — ^In his room. 
Servant — ^Which room? 

Laura — His room. 

(Cedric gets a chair to get Evelyn's dolls on the window sill; 
Walter comes out of the Conservatory.) 

Laura — Can't yon come again later in the day? 
Servant — They have to take the baggage now for the night train. 
Laura — But Mr. Walter may yet change his mind. 
Servant — They can be brought back from the station if he does. 
IjAura — Oh, very -well. The idea of his going to Europe and leav- 
ing us here all alone ! 
Walter — ^^Cedric, don't touch Evelyn's dolls. 

Scene 2 
(This entire scene may he omitted in representation.) 

{Enter Mrs. Mettingham from house, escorted by Dick with 
burlesque politeness, followed by the children, puny and more or 
less disreputable, the file ending with the pitiable figure of a 
man embarrassed, hat in hand.) 

Dick — Mrs. Mettingham desires to pay you a little welcome visit. 

Walter (Aside) — The whole zoo let loose! 

Mrs. Mettingham — Oh. my dear Mrs. Walter, you're back from 
the country; I'm so glad. We had a hard time getting along 
without you. 

Laura — Ah, but you know, you must learn to depend on yourself. 

Mrs. Mettingham — True, the Lord has abundantly blessed us, 
but bless me, you are the best of His blessings; that you are, 
yourself. {Embraces her. Laura tries hard to disengage her- 
self without being obviously unkind. Walter exit in evident 
disgust.) 

Laura {With surprise) — ^But I haven't been away! 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Mes. Metttngham — ^Strange! I would have been here a long 
time ago, but Mr. Dick kept teUing me how you were ordered 
away from home for a little rest, by the doctor. {Dich winks at 
his mother.) 

Dick — ^Mother kept putting off, you know. 

Lauea (Taking the hint, and turning the subject) — Benny is 
growing up! 

Mes. Mettingham — Where's your manners, boy? 
Lauea — Only a wee bit shy (Taps him on the head) ; and Susie's 
so tall ! 

Mes. Mettingham — Children do shoot up so, like, like 

Dick — ^I should say — ^asparagus in a moonlight night. 

Laura — ^What's wrong with Jenny? She's so pale. 

Fbedeeika (Aside to Dick) — Had her face washed for once, I guess. 

Mes. Mettingham — Jenny's the sickly one; eats like a horse all 
the same, and doesn't get any good out of it. If s a hard job 
to put food down all these gullets, when the cost of living keeps 
going up every hour. 

Laura — Frederika, do entertain the children. 

Dick — That's it, copy Aunt Edith; run a kindergarten. Come, 
kinder, come into my garden, "says the spider to the fly." (Point- 
ing to Frederika with a grimace) She'll play ogre. '^And when 
she's eaten all of you, you'll politely ask her why." 

Mrs. Mettingham (In admiration) — ^Your children are so clever. 
(Shoving several of them toward Dick) Go along with 
Mr. Dick. 

Dick — Needn't be scared of Frederika. She's not a tithe as ugly 
as she looks. Kindly ogre, avrfuUy good-natured after a big 
meal. (Children off to right rear.) (Dick strips the Christ- 
mas tree, and Frederika distributes the ornaments among them.) 

Laura — Surely your eldest son, Mrs. Mettingham 

Mrs. Metttntgham (Breaking in) — Yes, Jamie, you mean; he's 
a good son to us — a very good son. 

Lauea — ^And does nothing for your support? 

8 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Mrs. Mettingham — Oh, my, you haven't heard the news. Jamie, 
James I mean, is just going to be married to a rich shoe-dealer's 
daughter, and has a job already in the business. It all comes 
from the good looks he inherited from his father. Then Jamie 
was always smart and made what education he picked up go a 
long way. While a-courting, he had to put up a fine appearance, 
so he couldn't be expected to help us with money. 

Laura — But the courting is nearly over, and then he can contribute. 

Mrs. Mettingham (Horrified) — dear me, no! I'm too proud to 
have her ashamed of us. I told him to say he was an orphan 
(the Lord will forgive me). Being a real lady she must never 
guess how down in their luck his folks are, though I must say 
we are respectable — always have been. 

Laitra (Cheerfully, to Mr. MetUngliam) — ^And Mr. Mettingham, 
how are you getting along with the job Mr. Oregg procured for 
you at the warehouse ? 

Mrs. Mettingham (Quickly interrupting him) — ^Bill, you go 
dovni to the yard and help bring in that stove wood for the cook 
from the shed and we'll be along directly. (Bill Mettingham 
exits sheepishly hut evidently much relieved. She sighs deeply) 
You see ifs no use at all; he never was no hand, poor man, at 
manual labor. He had only kept that job three days when he 
came down with inflammatory rheumatism. You see in the old 
coimtry — son of a sexton and his father the same before him — 
he put in his spare time on fine joinery, real artistic cabinet- 
work, all inlaid woods, you know; and he just can't stand ex- 
posure in all sorts of weather, and the heavy lifting kills him, 
gives him the asthma. In the old country 

Laura (Breaking in with some indignation) — ^But surely he must 
adapt himseK to circumstances, and find some way to help you 
with the children. 

Mrs. Mettingham (Rallying loyally to her husband's defence) — 
When they were babies, he kept them from falling into the fire 
while I was out scrubbing, so you might almost say they owe 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



him their lives. And then (mysteriously) he carries that policy 
—$500.00. 

Lauea (Laugliing) — And you have to scrape the money together 
for the premiimis? 

Mes. Mettingham — Why, he can't, you know. 

Lauea — And you think you'll ever enjoy that $500.00 ? 

Mes. Mettingham — With the Lord's help ! Although sickly and 
rheumatic folks that have the asthma {shaking her head du- 
biously and sighing). (During what precedes, Dick has got a 
hatchet, chops off the branches of the Christmas tree, and the chil- 
dren burn them one at a time in the hearth; Frederika wields 
the hearth broom after the sparks, Cedric clapping and stamp- 
ing applause; the Mettingham children stolidly staring; con- 
fused cries.) 

Dick — One branch at a time, Cedric. 

Feedeeika — This isn't a bonfire ; you'll set the house on fire. 

Cedeic — Oh! what a spark. 

Feedeeika — Smash it quick ! 

Cedeic — 'What fun if the house should bum ! 

Dick — You little rascal, stamp it out quick. 

Feedeeika — Look there, Jenny, your dress will catch, and you'll 
burn up to a cinder. 

Dick — ^If you catch, you'll explode. 

Feedeeika — She's no cannon cracker. 

Lauea — Oh, children, what a clatter. 

Dick — We're entertaining Mrs. Mettingham's progeny with be- 
coming hospitality. 

Mes. Mettingham— Oh, don't you mind the children; I was just 
going to tell you, dear Mrs. Walter, since you're our guardian 
angel, that I've had to part with all our stuff to pay on Bill's 
policy. (Wiping her eyes with her apron.) Yes, and the grand 
furniture and all those blankets and comforters 

Lauea (Who had sunk wearily into a big chair) — Eeally, Mrs. Met- 

10 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



tingham, it would have been much cheaper for me to have met 
the premium myself out of my charity fund. 

Mes. Mettingham {Brightening visibly) — Exactly what I told 
Mr. Mettingham, but he insisted that so long as we had any- 
thing ourselves, coming to you'd be begging; and he couldn't 
stand for drawing on your charity fund anyhow. And Mr. Dick, 
as I told you, kept saying you were bound for the country, so 
we just did what we could and disposed of everything — stove, 
sewing-machine, the automatic and those beautiful bathtubs, 
porcelain lined; parting with them did hurt me to the quick. 
And the green iron bedsteads, on little brown castors, with 
shining brass knobs, oh, my ! 

Laura {Jumping up in impatience and looking as if she had for- 
gotten everything Mrs. Mettingham had said) — I wonder where 
Eichard is? {Turning to Mrs. Mettingham) That was all ex- 
ceedingly foolish, Mrs. Mettingham, but I suppose there is noth- 
ing else for me to do now except buy you a new outfit. See that 
this never occurs again ! 

Mrs. Metttngham {Emhracing Laura, to her visible irritation) — 

Oh, you are our blessed guardian angel. 
Laura {Having freed herself, pushes her gently toward the door) — 

I can't hear any more to-day. 

Mrs. Mettingham {Concealing her irritation) — Of course you 
can't. Come, all you chickens, and thank our guardian angel. 

Dick {As if calling roll) — Tom, Ellen, Jenny, Ben, Susie, all of 
you, Mother wants her asparagus to skip. 

Laura — Come back to-morrow, and I'U give you the check. 
(Walter enters just in time to see Mrs. Mettingham's second 
embrace.) 

Dick {Winhing at his father) — Not twice only; it's a ritual that 
has to be gone through regularly. 

{Mrs. Mettingham at the door turns around for a third em- 
brace. Walter exit, intolerably bored and disgusted. Dick 
drives out the Mettingham children, playing they are cattle. 
Cedric takes his mother's feather duster, which she has instinc- 

11 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



tively picked up in the hubbub, and begins dusting the outside 
of the window sashes, and then tries to catch a sparrow; reaches 
over, loses his balance and FrederiJca catches him just in time. 
Laura rushes over, hugs the child, sits down on the floor, rock' 
ing him hysterically.) 

Mrs. Mettingham — Heaven be praised, nothing happened to the 
little cherubim. God helps them as helps His poor; the re- 
spectable, I mean. {Exit discreetly. Frederika calmly returns 
to her puzzle.) 

Dick — The last of the Mettinghams has gone. (Opens the win- 
dow by the organ) Hygienic ventilation encouraged by the visits 
of the poor to the well-to-do ! 

Feedeeika — ^Oh, shut it — too cold for me to work out my puzzle- 
picture, and Evelyn's dolls will follow Cedric's example and try 
to commit suicide. 

Dick — Suicide ! 

liAUEA — The poor dear boy nearly feU to his death. 

Cedrio — ^I was trying to catch a snow bird. Won't you catch it 
for me, Dick ? 

Dick — Not your way, thank you. 

Scene 3 
(Enter Walter unnoticed.) 

Dick (To his mother. Helps her to a chair and picks up Gedric 
and shakes him playfully) — Do be comfortable. And you little 
orang-u-tan, what do you mean — scaring everybody out of his 
wits? 

Cedric — ^I'm no 'rang-tang, nohow, and I never scared you. So 
there now. 

Walter (To Laura ironically, passing the family in revieiv) — 
Where's Evelyn? The only member missing at the family 
rendezvous. 

Frederika — Gone to her grandmother's. 

Walter (To Laura) — What went wrong? 

12 



BEYOND DISILLUSION" 



Lauba — She was playing with Cedric's blocks; he objected ^ 
Frederika knocked over what she had built. 

Feedebika — It wasn't practical and I just played earthquake for 
demonstration. If s so hard to convince her with arguments. 

Walter {To Laura) — And you couldn't control them? 

Laura — I was too tired. They're aU so spirited and original. I 
was trying to teach Cedric a lullaby- Now I suppose he's for- 
gotten all I taught him. 

Walter — It isn't a lullaby we need so much as discipline, order, 
someone in authority over this hubbub and hullabaloo. {Turr^ 
ing to Frederika) Frederika, you should be ashamed of yourself 
playing earthquake — a didactic intention is no excuse. Go, find 
Evelyn and say I want her to return immediately; and, since 
you have been unkind to her, apologize and make up. Dick, 
oblige me by going along to keep the peace. 

Dick — Policeman to the suffragettes ? Lovely job ! 

Cedeic — I want to go too — always get candy at Grandma's and 
never have to behave at all. {Exeunt children.) 

Walter {Looking dejectedly about the room, going over to the 
organ) — Goldfish moved — window thrown wide! Fresh air — 
no matter what it kills! {Going over to table) Prints shoved 
aside for a puzzle ! 

Laura — One can't scold children from morning to night. 

Walter — ^But they can be excluded — can't they — from one room? 

Laura — ^You would drive them out of their home? Put them in 
strait-jackets and gag them? 

Walter — I tried a studio and office in the city. You accused me 
of deserting you. 

Laura — I hoped you might share my responsibilities. 

Walter — Exactly, so I moved home — bag and baggage; built the 
office in the back yard — the studio, and this music-room. And 
then — Attila and the Huns ! Worse yet, the barbarians effected 
final settlement. 

13 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Laura — Call your innocent children barbarians? If that's what 
they are — is it wholly my fault? 

Walter — ^I repeat it — this is my study for rest and spiritual re- 
newal. You alone were to have free access to it. Here I was to 
court the fickle visions — the soul of a man's soul. It should be 
respected by the family. 

Laura — If they are to be kept aloof from the head, why have a 
family at all ? 

Walter — God knows ! 

Laura — ^You can't mean what you say. {Ahout to cry.) 

Walter (Kindly) — Not if it seems unkind, of course; yet you 
must see that I can't be the keeper of a zoo, or an insane asylum, 
and be any sort of an artist. You ought to know, by this, the 
agony of concentrated attention. I'm not a youth of twenty. 
The dynamic idea, the creative mood don't come of themselves 
any more. 

Laura — What you say may all be perfectly true, but your living 
children are more precious than the buildings you erect for 
strangers ! 

Walter — Precious things should be put in a strong box at the 
bank! and what's more, that precious brother-in-law, the Par- 
son, has inveigled you into the toils of philanthropy. At it 
from dawn till midnight, week in, week out. All kinds of 
detestable nuisances in the name of public spirit and Christian 
service; and between whiles we're regaled with circus-parades 
of Mettinghams and other such flotsam and jetsam — single file, 
germs and all. And the old hag at the head of the procession 
has to hug you. Ifs enough to make a man laugh himself to 
death, or beat Job cursing the day of his birth ! And yet, you 
wonder that I start for Europe? 

Laura — ^Why, Eichard, I've tried to show sympathy for your art. 

Walter (Interrupting her) — Sketching, for instance, in would-be 
Japanese fashion — the winsome aspects of the slum? 

Laura (Hurt at the mockery) — If I had not tried so hard to play 
the part of both, and save you from the cares of the house, from 

14 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



social duties, church and civic interests, I might have had more 

leisure to devote to you. 
Walter — So it's all to help my art ? 

Laura — And I dispensed with governesses and nursery-maids; 
labored to keep your growing family close about you; to save 
you trouble in future, making them our comrades. 
Walter — Cronies, yes! {Shrugs Ms shoulders; orders Japanese 

prints silently; moves goldfish bach to table from organ; sweeps 

Frederika's puzzle into the box; speaking as if to himself) Oh 

for common-sense and poise ! 
Laura {Following Walter with her eyes) — Why can't you manage 

not to notice what jars on you — like those goldfish of yours. 
Walter — They have nothing to do but ogle and goggle and gobble 

and swim around and around. If you were to drop a lot of poUy- 

wogs and two or three electric eels into the same crystal bowl 

with them, it might upset their poise. 
Laura — They'd adapt themselves or die. 
Walter — I'll survive, never fear. I'm after conditions of work 

on which depends everything — even for the children. And the 

worst of it is, my poor, dear girl, you don't seem to understand. 
Laura — One thing I understand — ^your family are to be seen, not 

heard ; and seen only when they happen to fit into the picturesque 

panorama your fancy conjures up for you at the moment. 

Scene 4 

Dick {Enters, giving his father a military salute, holding Evelyn 
by the arm) — Secured the prisoner, sir! Didn't retreat to 'Tier 
Grandma's." Captured in the woodshed, howling; the tears 
freezing to heavy icicles on her eyelashes! 

Walter — ^You did what I bade you, Frederika? 

Frederika — I offered her a profuse and ingenious apology. 

Dick — The vaccination didn't take. 

Evelyn {Between sobs) — She's just been punching me all the way 
through the yard and up the stairs. 

15 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Fredeeika. — To make her accept my apology! I couldn't think 

on the spot of any other method. 
DiCK' — ^You observe, sir, Frederika is not particularly gifted in 

diplomacy; and the prisoner is a trifle captious and unreasonable. 
Wai/eeb (At his wit's end) — Laura, I give it up. I don't make 

a very capable police-judge when I do try. 
liAURA — Always a man's way, to expect a woman to do what he 

himself can't. 
Walteb (Semi-sarcastically) — For what else is she so superior a 

being? (Exit.) 
'Evelyn — Let me go. (Goes over to her dolls, wipes the tears on 

her dress and begins to play with the dolls on the organ manual, 

still sotting audibly.) 
Fbederika — Where's my puzzle? 
Laura — ^Your father moved it off his table; serves you right for 

meddling with his prints. Come, Cedric (seating herself by the 

fire), let us see if you remember a word of that lullaby. 
Cbdbio — ^Want to make a round house with my blocks. 
Lauba — Come ! Come ! 

Cedbio — I won't learn a lullaby 'cept it's about a railroad engine. 
Frederiea — Indulging in a head-on collision with a fast freight, 

or jumping the tracks off a high trestle, eh? 
Dick — The nature of the beast. Cedric's a boy. 
Latjea — ^Well, it's of no use. (Goes dejectedly to the -fire and begins 

to dust everything in and out of reach.) 

Scene 5 

Edith (Enters unobserved from the conservatory — tahes in the 

scene critically) — You look tired and worried. 
Lauba (Provoked) — Who wouldn't be? 
Edith (Orders the room a little) — Where's Mr. Walter? 
Laura — I don't know; he just went out. In the studio perhaps. 
Edith — No, I came from there. Won't you find him for us ? 

16 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Lauea — ^I can't attend to his family and him too. 

Edith — ^But why is the family here ? Isn't this his retreat ? 

LaueI (Bored) — Just what Eichard says; but why have a family 
if a man wants to retreat from them ! 

Edith — He is a special sort of man — an artist, my dear Lanra. 

Lauea- — Such special sorts should remain celibates! {Rising 
wearily) I suppose I'll have to look him up and send him to the 
studio when I find him. 

Edith — Not to the studio; he can't work there; he can't con- 
centrate. 

Lauea — Arthur and you get on his nerves there, as we do here? 

Edith — His conscience troubles him there. There's so much to do 
he doesn't know where to begin. Come, cheer up and help us. 
Maybe we will prove to him he doesn't have to go to Europe after 
all for inspiration. 

Lauea (With some interest) — How are you going about that? 

Edith — Why, show him he can work here. Arthur will bring 
him a difficult problem; his hand has not lost its cunning, and 
he will solve it on the spot, and so we'll show him the spell 
is broken. 

Lauea — Thank you; you are a faithful friend. {Starts to go. 

Edith stops her.) 
Edith — Now, little people, from the weest to the biggest ! 
Cedeic axd Evelyn — Well, Auntie Edith ? 
Edith — Clear the coast, bag and baggage; dolls, puzzles, blocks — 

This is your father's sanctum sanctorum. 

Cedeic — But we like it here; the music-room has just got to 
be ours! 

Edith — Not at all, my little man. And what's more, you'll all 
vacate in a jiffy, and then {mysteriously) we'll, each one of 
us, see if there's anything we don't know, and this evening be- 
fore bedtime organize a ^'find-out club." 

Evelyn— ^What's that. Auntie? 

17 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Edith — Each tries to answer the other's questions. 

FfiEDERiKA — Just a game of truth or "snake bites"? 

Edith — ^Except that you try to get the truth about things, instead 

of horrid lies about people. 
Dick — Detective competition, eh? 
Edith — Exactly. First priae to the one who asks the hardest 

questions, second prize to the one who answers the greatest 

number correctly. 
Evelyn — ^111 ask 

Edith — Keep your questions, little maid, from everybody till we 

play the game. 
Dick — Not half bad. Auntie Edith, as an idea, but are you sure 

ifU work? 
Feedeeika — ^Work, you dunce? If you'll play Gldipus, I'll be 

Sphinx and make up the conundrums. 
Edith — ^Shoo out all of you ! goslings, geese, and gander. (Moves 

slowly toward the door.) 
Evelyn — You're almost as nice as Grandma ! 
Edith — No comparison. I wonder which prize Cedric is going 

to get. 
Cedric^ — The biggest. 
Evelyn — ^As usual. 
Edith — We'll see; everybody get ready for the find-out club. 

{Exeunt children.) 
Laura — How beautifully you do manage them. 
Edith {Shrugs shoulders) — Training. 
Laura — What did you stop me for? 
Edith — Just to beg you — do help us hold Mr. Walter. I have a 

vague feeling, if he goes away, he won't return. 
Laura— If he wants to go, let him. 
Edith — You don't mean that. Lef s hold him for the business, 

the children, if not for yourself. 
Laura {Hesitating) — I'd try, but I don't know how. 

18 



ACT II 
THE EVICTION OF THE ARTIST 



ACT II 

Scene 1 

(Edith stirs the fire after setting everything to rights. She 
seems a practical, not an cBsthetic person. Her movements are 
jerJcy, angular. Her pine nez gives her a supercilious air — which 
she doesn't deserve. Enter Mc Arthur with drawing loardf— 
which he sets up several times — looking at it critically.) 

Mc'Aethue {In front of hoard) — The light's failing early. 

Edith {Peering out of the window) — The snow flurry makes the 
whole sky gray. {McArthur pulls the screen over — shutting off 
the fireside — from the rear of the room) What are you about? 

MoAnTHUR — Making the fire cosier. Extraordinary order 
in the romping room. 

Edith — ^Your humble servant's contribution to the harmony of the 
spheres. 

McAethue — Mr. Walter doesn't often hear it except punctuated 
with discords every few bars. 

Edith — ^Music's to charm the senses! The poor, benighti^ 
man doesn't thrill to Straussian cacophony ! 

McAethur — So she's training him to advanced artistic ideals' — 
by chaos? (Pause) Why does she drive him away? 

Edith — It is not she; it is his erratic genius. (Ironically) He 
needs inspiration? (Seriously) Why don't we rather? 

McAnTHUR (Laughing) — God knows we need it; only we couldn't 
get it — abroad or anywhere ! 

Edith— Why slander yourself? As for Mr. Walter he needs hard 
times to key him up to concert pitch. There's a church to be 
built, a new town to plot. They don't interest him ! If he just 
h a d to. (Pause) And, he'll lose business. 

MoAethue — Pshaw ! If s provoking — but his clients will have to 
wait till he chooses to return. There's no other Walter — and 
they know it. If only he could be allowed to preserve the in- 
tegrity of the creative mood 

21 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Edith — Twaddle! Don't you work right along? Your loyalty 
is — ridiculous. 

iMc Arthur (Chuckling) — ^You're not loyal! 

Edith — It's different in my case. I have no independent talent. 
I couldn't set up for myself. I have to earn my livelihood serv- 
ing somebody — I am well paid here and well treated. 

MoAethur — ^If I talk twaddle about genius — well, what of you? 
I'm the fool embarrassed with that obsolete cardiac muscle. 
Yours is in alcohol ! Parade of crassly selfish reasons for every- 
thing. Vulgar common sense (no more) for Grod's sake — even 
in religion! Up-to-date shame at all noble impulses that sur- 
vive sub rosa. Wonder who's the bigger fool after all — you or I ? 

Edith — Eeally, you forget yourself. 

McArthur — ^In admiration of your inconsistency! And you ex- 
pect to prove to Mr. Walter that he's wrong in wanting in- 
spiration — (Crosses to drawing board which he brings nearer 
fireplace) if he finds he can patch up m y roof? 

Edith — After such brazen speech, silence should be golden. 

MoAethur — And poking the fire the best of philosophies ! 

Scene 2 

(Room has been growing darher. The screen hides Edith and 
McArthur from Walter^ who enters from the house — stands still — 
irresolute a moment — then goes to the organ.) 

Walter — Quiet at last. (Picks up his violin out of the case, tunes 
it, then listens) Feeding time at the monkey house ! Poor little 
fiddle! (Starts to improvise, walking up and down, and finally 
notices Edith and McArthur, who have been attentively listen- 
ing) Well, well. You here? In the dark? 

McArthur — ^Don't let us interrupt. 

Walter — No apology. If s you, or another ! Turn on the lights, 
will you? (McArthur turns the switch hack — electric illumina- 
tion through transparencies in the ceiling) H'm. Miraculous 
order ! 

22 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Mc Arthur — Miss Waterman's doing. 

Walter — Thought as much. 

Edith — Laura found you! 

Walter — Yes — sent me here — told me all was quiet. 

McArthur — And so it was. 

Walter — Suspiciously. 

Edith — ^What old-fashioned insinuations against sensible folk ! 

Walter — Never saw such in my short life — all fools — gods and 
little fishes. {Loolcing at board) Something. A bear trap 
set for a cat bird, eh ? 
(Enter DicJc shouting.) 

Dick — Dinner, Pa! (Walter stares at him) Father, dinner. 
Walter — ^Barbarian ! 

Dick (Humorously) — Some have to butcher, cobble, cart refuse — 
to be barbarians. If I had an eye — I'd daub. If I had an ear 
— I'd strum or fiddle. As it is I'U compromise on a 50,000 
acre ranch. 

Walter (Turning sharply on Dick) — Whatever you do, my son, do 
what you want — that's my advice — what in your inmost soul 
something bids you do, even if you know it will kill you. I 
gave up the one thing I cared for passionately because the doctors 
said the violin would wreck my nervous system — so, fool that I 
was, I took to singing with bricks and mortar. 

Dick — Architecture brought you far ! 

Walter — So far, yes, but how far is that? Plans are not archi- 
tecture. Unless the world's ready, you can't do the thing you 
see. You have to keep at what the blind think they see, because 
the quadrumanous wretches have pawed it with all fours. Dig 
sewer-canals, subways, build aerial bridges, cog roads, airships, 
anything they think will earn dividends. 

Dick — Thafs all mighty interesting. Father ; but it's dinner time. 
Walter — I must first see what McArthur wants. 
McArthur — The problem can wait. 

23 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Dick — Dinners cool, and problems don't. 
Waltee — Go along, old nuisance. Business first. 
Dick — ^I'll report what you say ! But you're wrong there — grub's 
the serious business of life. 

Edith (Rises) — Don't bother your father, there's a good fellow. 

Dick — Auntie to rescue of the artist — against the wild man 

of Borneo. Ha, Ha! (Exit.) 
Walter — What's wrong? (Pointing to drawing hoard.) 
McArthur — That's for you to say. 

Walter — Let me see. (Takes drawing hoard — sets it on the 
mantel) No style, old man. You always were a middling-poor 
roofist. (Adjusts an impromptu easel) There. (Taking 
pencil) Draw that line down — so. Wider eaves — settle it. Hat 
without a brim — looks cockney. There, do you see? 

Evelyn (In the entry) — "Second call for dinner — served a la carte 

in the dining ear — ^to the rear." 

(Edith and McArthur start to go.) 
Edith — It's high time. 

McArthur — There won't even be stale bread for us at the cara- 
vansary. 

Walter — Bah ! It's my last evening. Let me show you a print — 
spring — absolutely and forever captured. Masses of cherry 
bloom — Fuji above the white clouds — and the people festive, 
radiant — gay color — movement everywhere — and peace broods 
over all — ethereal gladness. (Runs up to the gallery for the 
print.) 

Scene 3 

McArthur — His first stroke of work for weeks. But what does 
it prove ? 

Edith — ^Inspiration is not what he wants. 

McArthur — Proves it to you, yes, but to him? 

Edith — I'll do my best to convince him. 

24 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



McArthur — Where's the harm if he goes? One can't have too 

much inspiration. I'U swear to that. 
Edith — If he doesn't need it, he oughtn't to have it. 
McArthur — "The little more, and how much it is ; 

The little less, and what world's away !" 
Edith — Fiddlesticks. 
McArthur — ^And Fiddles. 
Edith — Enough's enough. 
McArthur — As for me, give me "too much." 
Edith — Quoting your mad Blake again. 
McArthur — "Beauty is exuberance !" 
Edith — All the same, I'll make one last appeal to his conscience. 

His trouble's only a morbid self-delusion. Hasn't he proved that 

just now? 
McArthur — Well, I'll be gone. I'U wait for you in the office to 

escort you home. 
Edith — ^I need no bodyguard. 
MoArthur — Good luck to your efforts. (Exit.) \ 

Scene 4 

(Enter Walter.) '■ 

Walter (Laying print on table) — ^Where's McArthur? 
Edith — ^He was called out. 
Walter (Sarcastically) — Always chances to be, when there's a 

new print. 
Edith (Gomes to him) — ^Begged me to bid you good-by for him if 

he didn't get to see you off at the station. 
Walter — An urgent call ! 
Edith (LooTcs at the print) — My taste is improving, for this seems 

lovely at the very first glance. 
Walter — The land of enchantment. Five years ago it was — seems 

like yesterday. 
Edith — Why don't you take Laura along this time also? 

25 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Walter — ^Wouldn't do. 

Edith — You axe not ninning away from h e r — as well as the office ? 

Walter — Does the bee "nm away" from the hive when it flies to 
the sweet clover or the syringa bush? 

Edith — She'd help you get the honey out of the flower-bells and 
carry it to the comb. 

Walter (Sarcastically) — And the children ? At this "^critical age" ? 
Perhaps you suggest a bureau of kindergarten travel ? Leaning 
Tower of Pisa — stand erect in youth! Milan Cathedral — too 
many spires make a Gothic porcupine! You wouldn't have us 
do that? (Enter Frederika and maid carrying tray, who de- 

■ posits it on small folding table she places by fireside, Frederika 
comes up and strokes father on the head as he leans over the 
picture and feeds the goldfish with a part of the cracker she 
munches, peering over father's shoulder.) 

Frederika — Cost a lot, eh ? 

Walter — ^What's not for the Mettinghams is wanton waste. 

Frederika — Guess you can afford it. I brought you your dinner. 

Walter (To Edith) — Go in with Frederika and take my place at 
the table. 

Edith — McArthur is waiting for me. 

Walter — Thank you, Frederika. (Exit Frederika) The moun- 
tain's been brought to Mahomet — still smoking. (Takes his 
violin) My first love. 

Edith — And Laura? 

Walter — ^Is it words you want? 

Edith — Take her along. Mr. McArthur will look after the busi- 
ness. Mother Walter and I will mind the children. 

Walter — I will take her along — as she danced for me in the moon- 
light among the azaleas on a rock overhanging an abyss of mys- 
tery; did you ever know her ? She's here — only (pointing to 
his forehead) now. You look grieved. 

Edith — ^Because I've faUed. 

26 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Walter — Not altogether. If she were as loyal to her spirit as you 

are to the mere woman of flesh and blood {Enter Mother 

Walter from house.) 

Edith — Good-by, and bon voyage. (She slips away.) 

Scene 5 

Mother Walter {Looking over her glasses) — I came over to break 
bread with you — and you stay away selfishly from your last meal 
at home ! 

Walter — It's eat, eat — though the food chokes me ! 

Mother — The master of the house can occupy his seat at the end 

of the table 

Walter — And exercise authority ! Not my talent. 

Mother — 'So you are going to Europe — for inspiration ? Eh ? An 
honest man — ^let me remind you, my son, finds t h a t — when he 
requires it — in his wife. 

Walter — As Dante in his, for instance, and the ten children? 

Mother — Beatrice was dead ! 

Walter — And Petrarch — ^was crowned on the capitol, I believe — 
laureate of the great Laura? 

Mother — She, a married woman — and he, in orders ! If you must 
foUow a model — choose Michael Angelo. He worked. 

Walter — ^And never pulled off his boots from year's end to year's 
end — nor changed his linen. But even he adored no wife of his 
youth — ^but the noble, ancient widow lady, Vittoria Colonna! 

Mother {Turning sharply on him) — Why do you trifle with your 

mother ? 
Walter — Why do you besmirch me with vulgar insinuations ? You 

know as well as I there is no woman in this case. 
Mother — Then mark my word, there will be. 
Walter {Impatiently) — Is an artistic ideal necessarily a woman? 
Mother — A woman crosses your path — puts on an innocent air — 

27 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



assumes a mystic rapture — bah, don't I know it ? And you drop 
a ready made halo 

Walter — On her pate — noddle — top-knot? 

Mother — Either give up your trip, or take your wife. 

Walter {Dryly) — Laura and my art are mutually exclusive 
interests. 

Mother — ^If Laura has had spirit enough to oppose a rival in ad- 
vance — perhaps I'm to blame. 

Walter — So you've conscientiously poisoned her mind ? And, for 
a practical woman — ^to attack our means of subsistence 

Mother — Tut, tut — Don't deceive yourself. We'll prosper better 
on plain commercial architecture. 

Walter — Though I lost my self-respect — and took prussic acid? 
My work depends on the mood — and the mood requires certain 
conditions — and I'm hoping to create them; that's all. 

Mother — Fine spun cobwebs to catch gnats. 

Walter {With forced laughter) — Blue bottles and bumble- 
bees break through ! 

Mother — All men have to work, Eichard, at what they don't like. 
You are no exception. If you can't get inspiration at home, or 
abroad with your wife, God doesn't mean you should have it. 
That's all. Most people get along very well without it. They 
do their duty. If s at least dignified. 

Walter — ^You mistake my case entirely. Whatever I did — I didn't 
d — I let happen through me. And you talk of self-direction, 
self-control. Who's that "self" you want to see direct and con- 
trol me ? The very enemy of the artist in me ! 

Mother — Do you forget that your father was a preacher of the 
gospel ? Yet he gave up his calling to sell books. 

Walter — For filthy lucre ? And you consented to have him com- 
mit sacrilege? You didn't prefer to starve? 

Mother {With indignant self-control) — And what did you commit 
when I dedicated you to the work he abandoned for your sake — 
and you chose, instead, this godless business of art? And 

38 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



did you resent my leaving your father to procure you the train- 
ing you wanted? I think the right to admonish you has been 
earned by sacrifice! 

Walter — Of wifely duty to maternal passion ! 

Mother (Losing control of herself) — ^Ungrateful son! 

Walter — You force me, in self-defense, to undeceive you. Be- 
cause father, according to your lights, betrayed the ideal, am 
I to desecrate it at your bidding? 

Mother (Sadly) — Not at mine. I have long given you up for 
myself, my son. But, I repeat, if you loved her, whom you 
vowed to love until death you should part, she would suffice for 
your inspiration. 

Walter (Looking strangely at his mother as if a new idea had 
reached him) — You are keen-sighted — and that's your diagno- 
sis ? I don't love her — any more ? Hum ! I can hardly say I'm 
much obliged to you for the information. And if you are right 
— who's to blame? Who began — ^by undermining 

Mother — Do be reasonable. That was to make you see the real 
woman — ^not delude yourself with a phantom. 

Walter — Well, I tell you, she should have gone on deluding me, 
or somehow managed to pursue athwart motherhood and house- 
wifery, the adorable personality I believed her to be. 

Mother — ^You are utterly unreasonable ! Disloyal ! 

Walter — Of course I'm unreasonable, but not disloyal. 'She has 
changed her wild nature for a humdrum one, hedged in by social 
sanctions. I've developed my nature — such as it is — ^vagabond 
fashion. God knows how I got it from father and you. But 
after all, I am what I was, only more so. 

Mother — ^And what is Laura now but what she really was ? 

Walter — No, I tell you — And if wifehood isn't first to the wife, 
can the husband, whose profession must come first, if he is to 
succeed, continue all his life on his knees, her adorer? If she 
scorns to strike the chord to which he vibrates — if she tries to 

29 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



make him fail in his career — isn't physical self-preservation the 
first law of nature — and spiritual self-preservation the first law 
of God? 

Mother — Monster of selfishness. 

Walter — And you who accused me of betraying my art in mar- 
rying h e r — ^you want me now to sell my soul for her — when, by 
your expert knowledge, I have ceased to love her ? That's reason- 
able ! That's loyal ! At bottom I am as hard and strong as you. 
We think differently, but both of us can will. 

Mother — Hush ! Or you will be overheard. 

Walter — ^I want to serve notice on the whole world. ^'Whoever 
assumes the role of tempter " 

Mother — ^Will you quote that — to your mother ? 

Walter — Only to the role you fill. 

Mother (Whispers) — Shame on you. (Low) It's the rector! 

Walter (Laughing grimly) — ^You wanted me — once upon a time 
— to apply it to Laura, "Get thee behind me, Satan !" 

Mother — The rector! 

Walter — He's welcome ! Casting out devils is his specialty. 

Scene 6 
(Enter Benedict Gregg, followed hy his wife, Marion.) 

Mother (Assuming society manners) — I'm so glad you have come. 

Gregg (To Walter) — Renouncing the devil and all his works? 

Mother (Awkward effort at levity) — So emphatically, it does my 
heart good. 

Gregg — We wanted to be sure of catching you. 

Marion (LooTcing about) — A dainty tray untouched ? 

Walter — No appetite. 

Mother — Excitement at leaving his dear wife and children and — 

his mother. (Exit.) 
Gregg — Go in for the dessert, we can wait. 

30 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Walter — ^If s over by this. 

Marion — Then I'll be off and comfort Laura, you hard-hearted 
wretch ! (Stops in entry) If Richard's business were like 
Benedict's — weddings, funerals, patching divorces, consoling old 
maids and widows, all beastly bores — ^I don't think Laura would 
grieve when her husband took a trip abroad. They're always 
after Benedict — shoals of women — ^big, little, fat, lean, dark, 
fair. (Coming bach to her husband and caressing his face 
fondly) No, I don't think I could let you go to Europe with- 
out your bodyguard, dear. One hundred would engage state- 
rooms on the same steamer ! 

Gregg (Quietly bantering) — ^Laura shows heroic confidence in 
her husband. 

Marion — he's not a clergyman — and then he's so safely un- 
attractive. (Exit.) 

Scene 7 

Gregg (Laughing) — You can allow for Marion's partiality. 
Walter — Take your rocker— feet on the fender — and light your 

pipe. 
Gregg — No, thanks. 
Walter — You look grave. 
Gregg — I'm worried about the Church. Frankly, between man 

and man, why are you going? 
Walter — For much the same reason — that you want the Church 

80 badly. 

Gregg (ShaJces his head and loohs into the fire) — I can't help 
thinking a great living religion would pull you through — recon- 
cile art with loyalty to home. 

Walter — And wouldn't need a Neo-Gothic edifice either — any 
hole in the ground would suffice ! 

Gregg — In times of persecution 

Walter — '0 I don't resent your occupying men of my craft. And 
as long as people are willing to pay their nickel fare up to the 

31 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



sheer heights once a week on a cog-road, plush seats, and a snort- 
ing engine ! 

Geegg — What are you driving at? 

Walter — Let me finish. Your job's clear. Stand at the throttle; 
fuel — Bible text and 30,000 thoughts indexed for preachers. 
Tracks laid for you — train dispatcher, road superintendent, track 
walkers, switchmen — all provided, while I have to lay my own 
tracks as I go. 

Gregg — It strikes me you are making light of my profession. 

Walter — ^And you ? 

Gregg — You are too arrogant in the implied comparison. 

Walter — Hardly, saving your presence! Good priests and 
preachers are legion ; passable artists — rare as snow in the tropics. 

Gregg — Do you think irregular and irresponsible living has fur- 
thered genius? If Shelley, Tasso, Byron, Goethe — had done 
their social duty — they would have been greater poets. Didn't 
Ben Jonson talk of the impossibility of '1)eing the good poet 
without first being the good man" ? 

Walter — ^Yes, Ben Jonson — not Shakespeare, with his "dark 
lad/' ; or Marlowe, killed in a tavern brawl. It's a pretty theory 
and does honor to your profession — but the facts ? They didn't 
behave — and were able to give mankind what was more precious 
than properest conformity: each one his special new impulse 
to progress. 

Gregg — ^You talk revolution ! 

Walter — ^And you — shop! You're here at mother's instance to 
catechize and exhort — and I resent it. If the great artists 
couldn't manage to be decent, everyday citizens — humdrum, 
punctual, comfortable, considerate — how can I — one of small 
gifts, in an age that condemns us to be freaks and pariahs — 
or parasites ? 

Gregg — Come, come. No offense was meant. I appreciate your 
difficulties. 

32 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Walter — ^How can you? As a man of taste you like the product. 
But you are not candid enough as moralist to license the process 
by which it can alone be produced! Our methods differ, as 
they should. You're an interpreter, not an originator. Now 
with me, it's study my problem, my materials, and then drop 
asleep — play the fool, as you think, till the lightning strikes 
somewhere. Then it's work like a whirlwind — a whole hill of 
ants — and relapse into apathy — idiocy! But you'd have me do 
things your way — copy cunningly — piece together — prudently 
adapt. WeU, if I controlled my work, it would be factitious, 
stale, insincere. If I controlled — ^myself — I should become a 
factory. 

Gregg — I've heard most of this before, if not so effectively put; 
and maybe — there's some truth in it. But Laura loves you — 
she is, once for aU, your helpmeet. 

N. B. {If Scene 2, Act I. is played in full this indictment of 
Laura may be cut.) 

Walter (Savagely exasperated, walking up and down. Gregg, at 
first amazed, gradtially overcome with the humor) — ^And haven't 
you inoculated her with the virus of philanthropy ? Fitted her to 
be an artisfs life-long comrade? Daubs were not enough. 
Domestic confusion worse confoimded ! New theories of letting 
the children educate themselves, basking in the silent radiation 
of parental moonshine. 

Gregg — Walter ! 

Walter — Don't stop me — here goes. (Counting on his fingers) 
Monday, studying how to spread the gospel of domestic science ; 
Tuesday, investigating the best methods of sanitary drainage; 
Wednesday, incontinent immediate eviction of the house fly from 
the slum; Thursday, extirpation of the social evil, for aught I 
know; Friday, suppression of the White Slave Traffic; Satur- 
day, and to cap the climax, almoner for the Whiteside Club, 
investigating suspicious cases, and dispensing aid and consola- 
tion personally. 

Gregg — Not so bad as that. 



33 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Walter — Maybe I get the calendar mixed, but then between 
whiles — agitation for dispensaries of compound oxygen (death 
on diseases in the respiratory tract), and lecture courses in 
dietetics, with model culinary laboratories to exorcise the devils 
from the alimentary tract — supervised skating rinks, and the 
terpsichorian revival: to teach young and old in the tenements 
how to dance, on rising, with open windows before donning 
raiment — as appetizer, and guarantee of perpetual youth. All 
wonders and fads to improve the race, and secure a dense popu- 
lation to rejoice the census taker at two and a haK cents per 
name. Symptoms all of your diabolical diseases of philanthropy I 

Gregg — ^The bolt has fallen, and the tree is sound ! 

Scene 8 
{Enter maid with hill collector.) 

Maid — Mr. Walter, I'm sorry to interrupt, but he insisted on be- 
ing shown in. Said he had urgent private business. 

Walter — A detective with a warrant? 

Collector — Excuse me — if I appear importunate — ^but you are 
leaving for a long trip to-night. 

Walter — How does that concern you? 

Collector — ^Mr. Oldman, the art dealer, thought you would not 
like to leave behind his account unsettled ? 

Walter — Considerate of him! (Oets his check hook) Excuse 
me, Gregg, while I make this charitable soul a check? Ifs for 
a Japanese print — a rare and beautiful specimen — go look at 
it — on the table yonder. 

Gregg — Another recruit to your unproductive army? 

Walter — It would be an unpardonable extravagance for you. To 
me, ifs a text-book, a tool, a sacrament. (To collector) There's 
Mr. Oldman's check, and much good may it do his constitution — 
and see he doesn't considerately dock you of your commission. 

Collector — I'm sorry I broke in on your privacy. I wish you 
a pleasant journey. 

34 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Walteb — The same to you — go. {To maid) Please show this en- 
terprising gentleman the shortest way out! {Exeunt maid and 
collector.) 

Scene 9 

Gregg— $250.00 ? 

Walter — ^Yes, a trifle, isn't it? 

Gregg — That seems a great deal to me. 

Walter — To remit my commission on the Church was no ex- 
travagance! A bribe to St. Peter delicately tendered through 
you? 

Gregg — I'm not here as an enemy — or busy-body — but as a brother. 
I don't mean to advise. 

Walter — Only diagram my state of mind — plot out my conduct? 

Gregg — To forestall mistakes. 

Walter — ^Which you charitably construe that I didn't really 
intend ! 

Gregg — Precisely. Your anger isn't genuine — and your gayety 
forced. You are very much troubled. You are not the irre- 
sponsible lad you would appear. Once for all, Laura is your wife. 

Walter {Impatiently) — And Marion, her step-sister, is yours. 

Gregg — Exactly, and my conduct is such that she is not under 
discussion. 

Walter {Derisively) — ^Ask Mother Walter. 

Gregg {Flushing) — You set your art above your duty to your wife. 

Walter — ^You draw your stipend, don't you, for being a model 
husband ? An asset, maybe, in your peculiar vocation. Sacrific- 
ing the Lord's business is a kind of self-sacrifice, and earns a 
patent of saintship. But what in my case? What have my 
private virtues or vices to do with my work? 

Gregg — Everything, with your working power. 

Walter — Just what I'm trying to recover — to save. 

Gregg — But in the wrong way. Your conscience will destroy it. 

Walter — ^Yours? Mine isn't troubling me. 

Gregg — Sooner or later it will. 

35 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Walter {Eyes him narrowly) — Are you talking, or mother? "The 
artisf s loyalty to his ideal, being infidelity in the man to the 
man's wife? Wanted only — the fortuitous lay figure to drape 

. in rainbows?" 

Gregg — What should a very unideal man do with an ideal woman 
— or rather what would she do with him ? 

Walter {Sincerely) — Suppose you had met your ideal woman? 
And made her your own? And life somehow touched her with 
an evil wind — and she became the enemy of her former self? 

Gregg — ^Ah, loyalty — ^to the woman of flesh and blood, faults and 
all. Cry avaunt to the ideal you fancy she once was, lest it be- 
come a vampire. 

Walter — You preach from practice ? Well, I serve you notice. I 
mean to go on loving the dream of my youth that haunts me 
still and sometimes inspires! 

Gregg — It's one — or the other. {Pause.) 

Walter {Accepting the dilemma with sense of new light) — Let 
it come to that, and I'll cast out the bond woman — ^her of flesh 
and blood — for the free — her of the spirit. 

Gregg — So we have joined issue at last ! 

Walter — ^You think to unhorse me with a lance of elder-wood, 
and heave off my head with a sword of lath? I've thought out 
this matter pretty thoroughly for myself. Public duty over- 
rides private? It's patriotic — to leave mother, wife, and chil- 
dren, and be food for cannon at the beck of shrewd politicians? 

Gregg — ^Your country, right or wrong! 

Walter — And it was saintly — to withdraw from the world; and 
still is, to underfeed, underclothe, undereducate and underbreed a 
numerous orthodox family, while preaching among the Mormons 
or the Indians — and better yet, if possible, make a luscious 
meal for the cannibals ? 

Gregg — ^You put it extravagantly. 

Walter {Shaking his fist at him) — ^You daren't call the very 
foundation and mainstay of your religion fanaticism! {More 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



soberly) Well — don^t you see — art is the language of the soul: 
transmitter — preserver — procreator of a people's ideals. {Vehe- 
mently) It's a public interest — that must be furthered by 
private sacrifice, cost what it may. Dionysus is the anthro- 
pophagous God, the man-eater ! 

Gregg — You rave like a monomaniac. 

Walter (Bitterly) — And laughably enough for art too — whose 
spirit has forsaken me ! 

Gregg (Feelingly) — ^You must choose, man, one or the other, 
sooner or later — why not now ? 

Walter (Looking at him narrowly) — ^You think, then, it's a case 
of two masters ? Art is very jealous, and will brook no rivalries ? 
Will repel her servant — till he's cut loose from all bondage 
utterly! Abandons all compromises! (Seeing light) Ha, Ha! 
Dangerous for your Doctrine — the suggestions you give me! 

Gregg — What suggestion — save that you rid yourself of hallucina- 
tions and obsessions — and become sane? 

Walter — Lest they possess me wholly? 

Gregg — They will — if you lose your grip on realities — people, 
specific obligations. 

Walter — Ha, Ha! And why shouldn't they possess me? You 
have diagrammed my soul and plotted my conduct ! Divorce ! 
A temporary — ^becomes a permanent absence. Ha, Ha ! 
And in freedom, the free spirit returns! What alternative do 
you leave an honest man? Since you calculate the orbit and 
foretell the crash — why not at once divorce ? 

Gregg — Divorce ? 

Scene 10 

(Enter Laura, closely followed by Marion — excited, -flushed — who 

pushes Laura aside.) 
Marion — Divorce ? What have you been arguing about ? (Runs 

up to feel husband's forehead and temples) Awfully agitated. 

Walter, you shouldn't excite him this way. 
Walter — We've been talking art and its sources. 

37 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Marion (Laughs, relieved — then suspicious) — All this tempest 
about art? 

Laura (Quietly) — My dear, you don't remember that ifs Richard's 
religion. 

Walter — And the occasion of the argument, that I don't build the 
Church right away. 

Marion — You have not been quarreling about that beastly bore 
of a Church ? 

Gregg — Just about morals and religion in general. 

Marion — I knew it ! I knew it ! If I left you one minute alone 
you'd be arguing morals and religion — wasting your precious 
strength on morals and religion — as if true morals and religion 
can't get along without you. 

Walter (Laughing) — ^Yes, indeed, or a true man without morals 
or religion. 

Marion (Renewed agitation) — don't, for heaven's sake, start 
another discussion. I would better take him to Mother Walter 
— she soothes his nerves with Bible quotations, and tidbits of 
Emerson, Carlyle, and Browning. Come, Benedict — do come, 
dear. We can return when you are feeling quite yourself again. 

Gregg — It is our duty to stay and help Walter recall his un- 
fortunate decision. 

Marion — Oh his business is his business. 

(While this little scene proceeds — evidently a usual performance 
— Walter approaches Laura, who goes to the tray.) 

Walter — Thank you for the supper, Laura. 

Laura — ^You didn't touch it. 

Walter — Couldn't. The thought of leaving 

Laura (Brightening) — I told you so — it would be useless — Like 
that trip years ago — when you fell ill. You were so home- 
sick. Do, at least, put it off. 

Walter (Somberly) — What's to be gained postponing the evil 
day? I haven't done a stroke of work. 

LiAURA — That thing for McArthur ? 

38 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Walteh — That bit of smudging? I mean, somethiag that would 
stir the pool and make it bubble from the bottom. 

Gregg — The Church doesn't do that? 

Walter — Hardly. 

Laura — But if I gave you a chance to do your ideal house — ^un- 
limited means — half a million to begin with ? 

Walter — For Mr. and Mrs. Hogbarrow and little Hogbarrows — a 
Gothic Castle or a Venetian palace in the desert? 

Laura — Only a Petit Trianon — true Louis XIV — on the brow of 
a hill — peering through the Golden Gate out at the Farlone 
islands. 

Marion (Ironically) — That would be art, but Benedict's Church 
—0 no! 

Laura — ^You could take your trip with an easier conscience. 

Walter — After pocketing the fat fee of your man? 

Laura — First, it's a woman; second, she's head over heels in love 
with your work, and you can make her do what you will. I don't 
suggest harnessing Pegasus to plow or harrow, only I do beg you 
to ride him! 

Walter — ^And put him up at the common livery stable. 
(Laura pays no attention, hut goes out cheerfully.) 

Gregg — It's a hard word, surely — livery stable — for your beauti- 
ful home. 

Walter — ^Madhouse would describe it better, where Pegasus gets 
the blind staggers. 

Marion — Do come to Mother Walter's. He's just trying to pick 
a quarrel. Can't you see it ? These crazy artists ! 

Scene 11 

(Enter Laura, escorting Helen — who meet Marion and Gregg 
and prevent their exit.) 

Laura (To Walter) — Miss Helen Darniell — we find we were at 
school together. 

39 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Helen — Ages ago ! 

Walter — These days we take no note of time, Miss Damiell. 

Laura — Helen wishes you to find out what she really wants, and 

build it for her. {Introduces Marion and Gregg) Now we'U 

leave you. 
Marion" — For a little artistic seance — tete a tete. {To Gregg) 

Thank heaven, you're no artist. 
Laura — Amen. 
Marion {Turning on her) — Eh? Think he's not fit to be one? 

{Exeunt Marion, Laura and Gregg.) 

Scene 12 

Helen — Perfectly adorable house — a real architect's — what shaU 

I caU it — bungalow? 
Walter — ^Caravansary. 

Helen — yes — of course — that's the technical term! 
Walter {Shoving in front of her the Japanese print) — 'And what 

do you think of this? 
Helen — ^If s rapturous — there's such a lot of it too — but — to teU 

you the truth, I'm not sure I understand it 
Walter — It's no argument for immortality. 

Helen — Not quite natural, you know 

Walter — Frankly — what does it look like? 

Helen — A procession of brown bogies — holding up loaded trays 
of whipped cream, and a skylight cone of lemon sherbet back 
of them. 

Walter — ^Why not — brown bogies lathered for a shave rather? 

Helen — ^Yes, of course ! How droll ! 

Walter {Laughs derisively) — ^Yery. 

Helen — You are just guying — ^making fim of me, I mean. 

Walter — Take a seat. 

Helen — Sure it isn't a dentist's chair? 

40 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Wai/tee — Worse. I^m going to translate that for you into another 
tongue. You care for music ? 

Helen — 'What I understand — rag-time and such like — and grand 
opera when it happens along, and everybody turns out for it. 

Waltee (Plays a few bars on his violin) — Well — do you under- 
stand this better ? 

Helen — No, but it's wonderful. 

Walter (Points to the picture) — So's that! I could do nothing 
that would really interest you. 

Helen — ^But I want what would interest you! 

Walter — ^A ready made palace, eh, for a ready made soul? And 
I can only build for a living soul — free of the past, sincerely 
true to the present, unabashed at the future — ^uncowed by eter- 
nity. (Putting violin and how into the case and snapping it 
with the last word.) 

Helen — Honestly, Mr. Walter, thaf s the sort of person I want to 
be — and really thought I was. 

Walter (Jocosely) — Until I was so exceedingly rude? 

Helen — I don't mind what you say — so you buUd for me. 

Walter — I'm afraid — ^I'd have to educate you, and I haven't the 

patience, any more. 
Helen — I'd heard you were — ' — 
Walter — Queer ! 
Helen — No, Qui — quixotic — quihotic, I mean, and would put me 

through a sort of physical examination. 
Walter — Heart test, lung test, blood test. 
Helen — 'Brain test, I suppose. But you can't discourage me. 

You tell me what you could build if I paid for it. 

Walter — I could only dream my dream for you, if, looking at you, 
I divined your possible spirit; I should have to build for that 
spirit the home that would suit its life — one you are not living 

and don't mean to live 

41 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Helen — A home for my possible spirit? A mausoleum — thafs 
just what I wanted all along. 

Walter — A sort of museum for the muse — and would you recog- 
nize it when you saw it? 

Helen — I don't know, but I'll put a half a million into it. You 
are to build what you want — ^not what I want. I'll agree to 
want it, when it's built! {She rushes to the door — calls out) 
Laura ! Laura ! 

Walter — iWait a minute. 

Helen — I won't, you might change your mind. 
(Enter Laura.) 

Helen — ^0 I'm so glad — he's agreed to build for me ! 

Laura (To Walter)— Fot her? 

Walter — Hardly — but for her possible spirit. 

Helen — yes, I forgot. Thafs downright uncanny — mystic — 
delicious, isn't it? Nobody ever thought before of my possible 
spirit. My spook! 

Laura — He means — what you ought to be. 

Walter — What you owe yourself to become. 

Helen — Never fear, I'll pay for it. My, but it will be exciting! 

Laura {To Walter) — So you won't leave to-night. 

Walter — I'll wire and take the next steamer. 

Laura — How can you do it in that time? 

Walter — The inspiration has come. 

Laura — So sudden? 

Walter — When she asked me to build my dream of a home — for 
a free spirit. 

Helen — how I envy you your husband — all your caterpillars 
turn butterflies, swallow tails, with him. 

Walter {Grimly) — And your wrigglers — mosquitoes? 

42 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Scene 13 

(Enter Mother Walter, Benedict Gregg — Marion Jagging after 
him — dusting his shoulders fussily.) 

Mother Walter (Sternly) — My son, there's no free spirit — even 
you are bound. 

Walter (Teasingly) — At all events Miss Darniell still boasts of 
single blessedness ! 

Helen — it's I who am to become a free spirit. 

Mother (Turning with knowing frown on Laura) — Didn't I teU 
you so? 

I^xjra — If Helen wants Richard to build what suits his fancy 
should you or I object? 

Marion (Piqued) — Yet he refused to stop over to do Benedict's 
Church. 

Walter (Irritated) — Mightn't be a house for a f r e e spirit. 

Mother — Shocking ! A house of God ? 

Helen — God's turn — I'm not the only one to catch it ! 

Mother (To Walter) — Take that back! 

Gregg (Deprecatingly) — He doesn't mean it. 

Walter (Eyeing him narrowly) — But I do. I owe you some- 
thing for your diagramming my state of soul. Is your God 
free? or has He an ear to the ground and eye on the pew rents? 
"Give me light," prays His pious minister — but be sure it agrees 
with that of my student's lamp ! "Teach me Thy will," but while 
you're about it, see, dear Lord, for heaven's sake, you don't 
violate any of our decent social customs! So your God isn't a 
free spirit ! 

Majeuon (To Benedict) — I won't have you stop to be insulted. 

Walter (Derisively) — If the cap fits him, he ought to go. Serious- 
ly all I have said is — ^I'll help Miss Darniell spend half a 
million. 

Marion — Good-by, Madam Half Million. 
(Marion goes out, followed hy her husband.) 

43 



BEYOND disillusion- 



Walter — ^Bravo! — save the parson's ears — and soul, if you can, 
from the truth. 

Laura (To Helen) — ^You mustn't take offense. Marion is a 
privileged character. 

Helen (Perplexed) — ^Well, if I am Madam Half Million, and am 
destined to become a free spirit some day and live in the mauso- 
leum your husband's going to build for me (turning to Walter) 
I must begin at least by being straight now. I don't yet have 
that sum — but as soon as you agree to build ■ 

Walter — You'll rub Aladdin's Lamp ? 

Helkn" — An old suitor — I've refused again and again — saw how I 
took a wild fancy for one of your dwelling houses, and offered 
me a wonderful site, and all it would cost to have you build on it. 
So I directly crossed the continent. 

Walter — ^You'd marry a man — ^you don't love — ^to build yourself 
a mansion in the sky ? Not a bam for you — not a dog kennel — 
not a dove cote. Never. 

Mother (To Laura) — It isn't as bad as I feared after all — not 
yet anyhow. 

Walter (Turning sharply on Laura) — I go as I planned. 

Mother — Fie on you, boy ! Insult your client when you're offered 
a flattering commission — any sensible man would bless his stars, 
if it came his way — and then unfeelingly you disappoint your 
wife ! She had hoped to induce you to postpone your ridiculous 
trip, and so had I. (To Helen) He's not responsible. Madam, 
he has spells like this now and then. He'll yet come to his 
senses by and by and build you anything you order. (Taking 
out Helen.) 

Scene 14 

(Laura throws window open ly window seat. Sits down lacka- 
daisical, hands in lap, hy the window — hair -flies in the wind. Snow 
fall is lit up hy electric light of the street. Laura stares into it 
fixedly.) 

Walter — ^What do you see in the snow fall? 

44 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



IiAmtY — Nothing. 

Walter — ^It falls steadily, but the flakes are so large — they won't 

lie . 

Laura — Thaw to slush and mud ! 

Walter (Going for his .print) — Care to examine my latest pet? 
(Laura shakes her head) Very like the scene we admired to- 
gether: Fuji glistening and calm — above a long blossoming 
"pergola" — the people full of the joy of the spring. (He looks 
at the print himself^ then curiously at Laura. Getting his violin) 
Your favorite allegro ? 

Laura (Eyeing him sternly) — Should I dance to your fiddling? 

Walter (Greatly amazed) — Oh! Into your coffin, little baby! 

Laura (Looking up wearily) — ^Why don't you lay me in mine? 

Walter (Would he cheerily) — For obvious reasons — we're not 
dead yet. Because awkward difiiculties face us which we can- 
not help, don't let us be angry, and wantonly devise others. 

Laura — You use the plural — intending the singular. What mis- 
chief am I n w about ? 

Walter (Takes off shelf — near center — hook after hook and tosses 
it on the floor. Speaks hetween whiles) — When we were — what 
we are no more — we met young love. Can't we, for his by- 
gone sweetness' sake, show charity and mercy — be reasonable and 
just? (She looks at him hewildered and inquiringly) Only 
guide books I forgot. ( Gets his suit case — and repacks to make 
room for them) You say nothing? 

Laura (With audible restraint) — I cannot be so dispassionate and 
philosophical. I will not deny that I did love you — and with 
all loyal people — to love once is to love forever. 

Walter (Tries hard to shut the case) — Footlight superstition: 
Plato and Company — chiefly the company. 

Laura — And "inspiration" ? 

Walter (Shutting the case triumphantly) — Love and inspiration 
are both mere states of consciousness — dependent on specifiable 
conditions. Can the sails belly out in the wind that's died down ? 

45 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Laura — And we're paralyzed — Have no will power? 

Walter — Will — love? inspiration? Never. Their conditions? 

Sometimes ! 
Laura (Coming up to him) — And love — can't create what it 

feeds on — loveliness ? Do I love you for your virtues ? Or hate 

you for your faults? If I am what I seem to you, is it all my 

doing ? 

Walter — You are so passionate — so intense — I envy you. All I 

know is I'm bored — worried — spiritually dead. I feel nothing 

keenly enough to escape tedium. 
Laura — And you feel nothing for me? 
Walter — Infinite pity. 
Laura — ^And for yourself, Eichard? 
Walter — A sickening contempt. 
Laura (Hopefully) — ^You have moods — desperate moods. So 

have I. We were drawn to one another by — divine discontent: 

a quest together of the ideal. 

''Valter — Sentimentalizing now can't bring to life again our old 
lost happiness. But a comradeship might have been possible — 
based on acknowledgment of inevitable changes: the wholesome 
summer fruit of the wind-strown bloom of spring. 

Laura — So it's my fault. I've let your love for me die — ^like a 
nodding nurse that drops off her knees her little child onto the 
fender to its death. And I can't foresee, and adroitly fit into, 
your shifting moods. The whole household irks you. Should 
we have put our children away — because they are troublesome? 
Was it I who imported into our home — ^the influence to under- 
mine our self-respect and mutual regard — with insinuated dis- 
approval at every turn? 

Walter (Impatiently) — A blunder! The younger generation 
had a right to its chance. You should have protested when I 
proposed to settle her next door. 

Laura — ^Your mother, Eichard? When you were so bent on the 
plan? 

46 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Walter — There's no gain in vulgar recriminations. Granted it 
was my fault — reviewing causes won't alter effects. It is y o u 
who can't accept the fact that we have changed. Once — you cast 
a spell on me — that made for art. Now you don't, that's all. Is 
it my fault ? Is it yours ? Gradually you ceased being my com- 
rade, sank yourself in housewife and mother. (Waving silence 
to her interruption) Economizing for me! My children — of 
course, I understand. But you wouldn't hire competent service 
and release yourself for m e. Then, because you couldn't help 
seeing — to blind yourself — you set about being frantically busy 
with other people's affairs. {Waving off interruption again) 0, 
of course. To bring new interests into my life — or to spare 
me from the distraction of social duties — entirely for m y sake. 
I understand. Not either because you loved these things, no. 
You always perversely — on principle — forced yourself into what 
you and I most hate. 

Laura {Sincerely) — ^But Eichard — what's the meaning of duty? 

What we have no taste for, or talent — isn't that God's will 

for us ? 
Walter {Fiercely) — And suppose your duty had been much easier 

— merely helping me to the conditions of my life's work? 

Laura {Bitterly) — Called to be your Egeria? At your beck, strik- 
ing the right chord to which your soul vibrates? Should not 
one hire expert service for that also? 

Walter — ^You don't understand ! 

Laura — I'm not such a dullard but that I have my lesson by 
heart. A genius is an exceptional being. The law is for com- 
monplace individuals. They are replaceable. So they must 
obey. Their survival is not so important as the contemporary 
maintenance of moral tone — the safety of the next generation. 
Pah! And you are a genius — not replaceable, whose peculiar 
faculty must be exercised at all cost. Buddha had a right to 
desert his wife — it became him — was godly in him. It was im- 
perial of Napoleon to divorce Josephine, and so on with Goethe 
and Bismarck and the rest. 

47 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Walter (Surprised) — And I've indoctrinated you with such 
heresies? (Laughing) There's truth in them, all the same. 
As an artist, though a very modest and insignificant one, I suf- 
fered one great disappointment. You wouldn't let me throw my- 
self away. So I can sing just one little song — two or three notes 
in a monotonous rhythm. And now — I can't sing it. There's 
my heU ! And you, somehow — and the children and this parson 
(that compromises morally, and lies ecclesiastically), and that 
mother of mine, who would have me abjure any ideal you aren't 
lucky enough at the time to represent, and all the smug pew- 
rent-paying hucksters and muck-mongers — ^have contrived, in- 
nocently of course — ^(and altogether for m y sake, who knows) — 
so that I can't sing my poor little song ! 

Laura (Amazed) — What devil has possessed you? 

Walter — Some words of the Uncompromising One which mother 
taught me ring in my ears : "Whosoever loveth father or mother 
or wife or child more than me, is not worthy of me." And that 
"M e" is, in m y case, m y work. You declared war on it. 

Laura (At a loss) — I have been proud of your success. 

Walter — As my success — not for its own sake. 

Laura — I married the man — ^not the artist. What I loved was 
your soul. 

Walter — iSoul ? Loved ? Those words, I fear, have faded out for 
me to sound. If you mean that adolescent, vague expectation 
and panicky thrill — all the magic which nature throws on us to 
lure us, poor besotted creatures, from our own private end to 
hers — surely that's well over for me, and I fancy for you; and 
the changeling you cherish is an ache — a gnawing sorrow — a 
cruel disappointment. 

Laura (Trying to see the humor of things) — This is all very bad, 
and I suppose we'll have to reform — and meanwhile, you satisfy 
the wander-lust — the gypsy strain in the blood — the attack 
will pass. 

Walter — We can't reform — and — ^I won't return. 

Laura (Startled) — But Richard — I am your wife! 

'48 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Walter — ^I don't deny my obligation to support you. 

Laura — Put me on a pension? And the children — o u r children? 

Walter — I owe them a start in life — and I'll discharge my debts. 

Laura — But love? 

Walter — I've never been much to them. It's a pity, but I haven't 
any parental feeling. If love means willingness to sacrifice — 
if necessary, you can sell all my Japanese prints. 

Laura — Hichard ! Enough of this hideous jest. Desert us, never 
to return ? 

Walter — Never. 

Laura — ^But I love you ! 

Walter — It's that love of yours that I dread — and hate. For if s 
only the property instinct gone mad. You own me ! I am yours. 

Laura — It's me then you hate ? Because some Vision of the Dawn 
has crossed your path — some breath of a new spring? 

Walter — Laura — I can't have you think so meanly of the woman 
I have loved. It was you — it is you — or nobody. To break with 
our past — is death. True we fag, and crave variety ; but beneath 
the craving is the deep necessity for continuity — loyalty — truth 
— to one's self. It's the same who must be many — it's the old 
must turn new. Our change demands a corresponding change — 
that keeps pace with our progress ahead of us — intenser in 
measure of our greater need. {Takes out of a 'portfolio her like- 
ness and puts it in his satchel) You see — it was you — for me. 

Laura — Ah, Richard, then you will return. 

Walter — Never, so help me God. Because it's you no longer. And 
don't suppose I sha'n't regret our fate. I leave my highest hopes 
behind. The art, that I dreamed, can't be through me; for noth- 
ing can come out of my life that's gracious and winsome. But 
I'll save what I can out of the wreck. 

Laura — You can't, you sha'n't go ! You can't do without me. You 
are mine, Richard. 

Walter — Ah, what did I say ? Vested interests — ^you see? And I 
reply. No — ^I'm no slave, not yours, not my own, to regulate as 

49 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



a machine — but God's ; and that is why — ^there's nothing for me 
to do but go. 

Laura — Kichard. 

Walter — It's a mutual emancipation. You rebelled at sinking 
yourself in me? You were right! We are free now to attain, 
each of us, to our best self. And we may even, in course of time, 
come to cherish the sacred memories we share. It is cruel — 
but it is. 

Laura — I'll never release you by loving you no longer. Maybe, 
I'll love you more — for doing your duty as you see it — ^because 
you force me to start on the awful quest — of what I'm not. 

Walter — Now you are making it hard for me. Very hard 

Laura — Stay then — and we'U make a fresh start. We will each try 
to help the other to his ideal. 

Walter — Self-deception ! Only another sacrifice — a claim to urge 
on me later; something from outside: not the spontaneous, in- 
evitable outburst from within — that casts a spell — that breathes 
the overmastering charm. I've seen it with terrible clearness 
to-day. It would be sin — death — to turn back. It could only 
add to my remorse, and to your anguish. 

Laura — The world's round, Eichard, and swings in a closed orbit. 

Walter — Good-by. 

Laura — Go ! {After he's gone) Poor — ^blind — ^mad fool ! 

Curtain 



50 



ACT III 
MOTHER OR WOMAN 



ACT III 

(Pictures of Walter and Laura placed in front of the organ 
pipes; budding lilac houghs are hung about the room; Chinese lilies 
near the window; goldfish on the other side of the organ; effort 
to indicate on the stage that the retrospective adolescent ideal of 
marriage ha^s become occult in spite of the formal divorce.) 

Scene 1 

{Enter DicJc, newspaper in hand.) 

Dick — Auntie Edith ! Nobody here ? Playing truant for mother's 
wedding day ; I must talk to somebody about this. At all events, 
mother can't be allowed to see this sheet. (Spreads the paper 
on the table) Engaged to be married, eh? Father? Waiting 
till the divorce decree takes effect ? A black lie ! But it would 
spoil her fun just the same. (Looking about) Whew ! Cold as 
the North Pole! Windows wide open; fire almost out. (Stirs 
up the fire, fans it with paper, then sticlcs the paper into the 
fire) Well, this particular copy won't make any more mis- 
chief. In the nick of time ! 

Scene 2 
(Laura enters, tired and dispirited.) 

Dick — No blues to-day, Mother. (He makes her sit down) No- 
body's behind the screen ; mail piled up unopened ! You're cold. 
Make yourself comfy. (Shuts the window) Lilies done for! 

Laura — ^What, Dick? 

Dick — Fresh air cure for new disease — Longevity. Last goldJfish 
turned acrobat, floating on his back ! 

Laura — Dead? (Rushes over to see.) 

Dick — ^Wanted ozone for the new BaUet. Maids won't discrimi- 
nate in applying general orders. 

Laura — It is not the maids. 

Dick — ^Martyrs in a good cause. Had to be promoted some- 
time, you know. 

53 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Laura — It's an omen, Dick. 

Dick — Bah! Who's superstitious? 

Laura — They were your father's. 

Dick — ^Get others, he won't know the difference — by wireless, and 
then, what of the omen ? 

Laura — But you see, Dick, I've been thinking — and when a mis- 
giving you haven't dared to admit to yourself is spoken out loud 

. Do you really believe your father will ever return ? I have 

tried to bring the beauty he loved into the house, and Auntie 
Edith has helped bring the peace and the poise. 

Dick {Looking about) — Lovely decorations, and thank goodness, 
Botheringhams departed this life as far as we're concerned. 

Laura — ^But I've had no satisfaction in anything. 

Dick — ^You've done some pretty fine dancing. 

Laura — Amateurish — waste of time. I thought he would have been 
back long before this. 

Dick — ^Anyhow he'll come back; see if he doesn't, and you are 
right, just the same, in keeping the day. 

Laura — ^You haven't lost faith yet in your parents? The scan- 
dal — the mortification? 

Dick — Bah ! Other people, mother, haven't sense enough to know 
they're in trouble, or are afraid to face their faults. I'm proud of 
father, and I'm just as proud of you. 

Laura — Thank you, Dick, you've helped me. {Dancing master is 
announced ly maid.) 

Dick — You're tired; let him come up here to you. {To the maid) 
Show him up. {To his mother) Now I'll cremate the lilies in 
style, and the cat will give the fish decent burial free of charge. 
Just keep up your spirits, and we'll make the omens go by con- 
traries. {Dick carries out the fish howl in mock gravity; hows 
to the dancing master as they pass.) Take care, no head-on 
collisions. H o there ! Haven't my cow-catcher on. {Exit into 
the house.) 

54 



BEYOND DISILLUSION" 



Scene 3 

Dancing Master — You'll excuse me; I was told {Dancing 

master looks at decorations in surprise.) 

Lauea — My wedding anniversary, you know. 
Dancing Master {Evincing more surprise) — I intrude? 
Laura — A household day, kept for the children's sake. 
Dancing Master (Dryly) — ^An excellent custom. 

Laura (Shows him to a seat hy the fire) — I haven't practised my 

two hours to-day. 
Dancing Master — Thought as much. 
Laura — How could you tell? 
Dancing Master — You'd look fresher; more cheerful. A good 

conscience and the magic of perfect motion rest the nerves. I 

see we shall have to discontinue our lessons. 
Laura (With forced smile) — ^You musn't try, Mr. Lightfoot, to 

manage me with threats. 
Dancing Master (Soberly)— -It is dishonest to take money when 

one is not allowed to render a fair equivalent. 

Laura — ^You do not know how much you have done for me already. 

Dancing Master — That's the very point ! Everything ! And you 
nothing. Shall I let you go on deceiving yourself? And to- 
day after I saw — (Laura stares up at him, startled, then he re- 
covers himself) — ^the error of our ways. 

Laura — ^But you aroused hopes, Mr. Lightfoot. 

Daijcing Master — To fulfil which, you remember, you were to 

give up everything. 
Laura (Justifying herself) — I wish I could, heaven knows, but I 

have duties. 
Dancing Master— Duties are often trees of the garden, behind 

which we hide from the Lord. 
T^AHRA — Mr. Lightfoot, can I for any vocation, however dear, cease 

to be a mother? 

55 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Dancing Mastek — And perhaps you owe those children — now 
more than ever — to conquer your independence, to establish by 
definite achievement your right to their respect. You would 
have them be thorough, real, sincere? Carry through whatever 
they undertake at all costs ? 

Laura — il know — only too well. Of course you can see no reason 
why I shouldn't delegate to competent experts those duties which 
done unscientifically only destroy my life; but the essence of 
those services is the spirit in which they are discharged. How 
could hirelings or strangers, even their grandmother, take my 
place ? 

Dancing Master — I am not here to argue with you. My heart 
goes out to you in pity because you cannot see your way to be- 
come a free woman — a fit mother of free men with a career of 
your own. 

Laura — ^Mother has been speaking to you? 

Dancing Master — Wliat she urged has had no weight with me. 
For some time I have been expecting — but haven't had the cour- 
age — till this morning. You deserve from me at least the truth. 

Laura — But I also want your help. I do so much need to forget 
everything in something; and nothing has ever taken hold of me 
like the dance as you teach it: as a means of expression for our 
very inmost self. It is merciful sometimes to keep up an inno- 
cent self-delusion. 

Dancing Master — Sacred things shouldn't be administered as 
anodynes for private griefs. We are back at the old point. 
(Rises from chair) Anything worth while asks all there is 
of us : strength, devotion, courage. But while I insist on arous- 
ing you, I am not unappreciative — wilfully unkind — in fact I 
have come to you with a proposition. If you'll stop making be- 
lieve that you run a house, rear a family, reform the poor, etc., 
and will definitely devote yourself to the art you love, I will 
launch you in good earnest and without charge. 

Laura — ^I could never consent to incur so large a debt to you. 

56 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Dancing Mastee — ^It is I should be in your debt. I am no longer 
young. All these years I have striven to have my ideal realized. 
And as one gets older one begins to fear one's dreams will turn 
out only dreams, and dissipate. To see the ancient dance revived : 
not the dismal, imbecile, semi-lascivious whirly-gig of hop and 
glide; but the sequence of holy and glorious attitudes in ex- 
quisite melody; pleasure, worship, thanksgiving, ecstasy, sorrow, 
despair, fortitude, seK-sacrifice, vision of God — all the gamut of 
the soul ! Is not that enough ? 

Laura — And could I even now realize your ideal? 

Dancing Master (Evidently puzzled) — Now? (Solemnly, after a 
pause) I do not understand. But this much is true. Sorrow 
initiates the artist, fits him to speak out of the hidden depths. 
And you are the only pupil I ever had with the right tempera- 
ment, the quick hospitality to ideas, the absolute response to in- 
spiration. All you require is discipline, and the total self-con- 
secration necessary for discipline. 

Laura — If it isn't youth and beauty, but the idea, the spontaneous 
motion, the kindling spirit — can't I put it off until the children 
are grown up ? 

Dancing Master — And what of my last years ? Oh, you are selfish 
and foolish to boot. (Laughs cruelly) Cedric grown up ! His 
wild oats sown? His professional career imder way? Mean- 
while you're grandmother to the babies of the older children ! 
Never ! No, break off definitely. Die to your past. You have 
a right now, if ever; adopt a new name, start over. You'll for- 
give me if I've spoken harsh things honestly. 

Iaura — If you only knew how my whole being craves this very 
thing you urge ! Oh, you are very cruel. But I cannot yet. He 
might return. It is for his sake. 

Dancing Master — For his sake? 

Laura (LooJcing dancing master straight in the eyes) — ^Yes, 

his sake. 
Dancing Master — Then I say too, "For his sake." . 

57 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Laura — Perhaps you are right. If I can see it your way — Come 
to dinner at seven o'clock. I must settle this to-day. 

Dancing Master — AU or nothing, mind you. I'll try to be on 
time, but don't wait for me. If you haven't decided to-night for 
the peace of us both, I'll withdraw my offer. 

Laura — It shall be then 

Dancing Master — Or never. 

Scene 4 

Mother Walter — ^What is put off till to-night, daughter ? 
Laura — My decision, {Scanning her steadily.) 
Mother Walter — Ah, a good resolution on your wedding day? 
Laura — The second without Kichard. 
Mother Walter (Sarcastically) — To give up the Dance? 
Laura — Who knows? Your unsolicited interference resulted un- 
expectedly. Mr. Lightfoot offers me my training free. 
Mother Walter — The traitor! But you must be father to the 

children as well as mother. 
Laura (Aroused) — ^When did I contract double parenthood? 
Mother Walter — The day you drove my son away. 
Laura (Coldly sarcastic) — What if others helped? 
Mother Walter (Pause) — ^Ungrateful girl! When I labored so 

hard to hold him! And had you not granted him the divorce? 
Laura — Oh, Mother, can't you understand? It was to bring him 

home in the end. 
Mother Walter — I do really begin to believe you care for him. 

Surely you wouldn't desert his children. 
Laura — ^What if I owed it to these same children to make myself 

independent of the pension he may dole out to his ex-wife? 
Mother Walter — ^You will act once more on impulse and passion, 

and not on principle? 
Laura — And become, since I drove him away, the woman to draw 

him back again? 

58 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Scene 5 

{Enter Marion.) 

Mamon — ^Laura! Laura! 

Mother Waxtee — ^I'm glad you've come. Laura needs you to 
cheer her up. 

Marion — ^I'm a specific for the blues, and ought to be able to im- 
part sound second-hand doctrine. You see, Laura, I've just 
come from a card party. 

Mother Walter — In the morning? A clergyman's wife? 

Marion — It's the way to get the news — and I teU you, I'm glad for 
Laura's sake I went. People are talking: Mr. McArthur stays 
in the house. 

Laijra — ^WeU? Isn't my trouble a protection? 

Mother Walter — Dear me, no! Only an incentive. Makes you 
— as Benedict puts it — interesting psychological material for 
vivisection. 

Laura — ^Isn't Edith in the house too ? 

Marion — Edith a protection? Can't you understand? Richard's 
pupil and his stenographer in league to get his business — house 
and ever}i;hing. Nonsense of course. But then 

Mother Walter — Really, Marion, I think I am next door. 

Marion — Exactly! Next door! Ha! Ha! 

{Enter servant announcing lunch.) 
Marion — Oh, here I'm gadding, and Benedict needs me ! 
Servant — Mr. McArthur and Miss Dwight have telephoned not to 

expect them — they are detained. 
Marion — ^You see? {To servant) Miss Dwight for both? 
Servant — No, Ma'am. 
Marion — All the worse, you see — they've got a guilty conscience. 

I'm a clairvoyant in such things. Good-by. Must be off. I'U 

be at dinner to-night. But Benedict, I'm sure, can't come. 

59 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Scene G 

Mother Walter — ^You wouldn't, when people are talking so 
dreadfully, give them cause? Independence is all very fine, up 
to date, I grant you, and romantic; but for a mother of four 
children it is not practical. You need more, and not less in- 
come from the same source. 

Laura — ^^I may seem to you fantastic, full of freaks and notions — 
but I'm no patient Griselda. Eichard sha'n't be let off with a 
money indemnity by me, and suppose he can leave Mr. Mc- 
Arthur as his convenient substitute ; he sha'n't follow the corpse 
of his meek and mercenary pensioned ex-wife, with a second com- 
panion on his arm, shedding tears over my demise for joy at 
the timely economy ! A man can't reckon on maternal duty for- 
ever to keep a woman still, when he has failed in his conjugal 
duties ! 

Mother Walter — ^You astonish me ! And you keep this an- 
niversary ? 

Laura — Because, in spite of you, I still believe in him; if I did 
not 

Mother Walter — ^Well, what would you do? 

Laura — ^Leave ! Live my own life ! 

Mother Walter — 'You are out of your senses, poor child. 

Laura — ^You could be Orandmother, Grandfather, Father, and 
Mother. 

Mother Walter — I will not stay to hear words you will repent. 
(Exit) 

Laura — Oh, if I only knew — ^then I might have the strength to 
refuse this offer of freedom — of self-expression. — if deep down 
in his soul he is still mine — ^I could wait — ^yes, forever. But if 
not, I cannot endure this life longer. {Noise of the children. 
She gets up with heroic effort at self-control) Pandemonium 
broken loose. To-day I must decide. (Exit.) 

60 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Scene 7 

(Edith enters cautiously from conservatory, tidies the office, part 

of the music room on the left.) 

Mc Arthur (Coming behind Edith) — A kiss to the bride is in 
order. 

Edith — No nonsense in business hours! 

McArthur — Who says it's nonsense? 

Edith — A man shouldn't flirt with his typewriter. 

McArthur — Even after ? 

Edith — ^Least of all then. It's a common-sense partnership, ours ; 
and business is business. (Makes the fire blaze and looJcs to the 
radiators. Loohs about) Goldfish gone; lilies gone; queer. 

McArthur — Are you so sure it will be a pleasant surprise ? 

Edith — It ought to be. Stops outrageous gossip. Puts us in the 
natural place of Laura's protectors. Partners with her in every 
respect. 

MoArthur^ — ^Well, you know more about social affairs than I. Any- 
thing in the mail? 

Edith — ^Bills and advertisements; it takes a monster waste-basket 
these days. 

McArthur — Nothing more? 

Edith — No, Sir, But the second mail is not yet due. 

McArthur— Well, I'll dictate that letter then. (Edith settles 
down to worh. McArthur walks up and down dictating) ^TDear 
Walter: Edith and I are married. This will, I think, make 
matters easier for Laura. As to your generous " (Inter- 
rupting himself) wait a bit — "thoughtless " 

Edith — ^unqualified ? 

McArthur (Shaking his head) — "proposition to sell me the busi- 
ness, I can never entertain it." 

Edith — ^Why shouldn't you? 

McArthur — I thought you were my typewriter? 

Edith — Can't a typewriter have thoughts? 

61 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Mc Arthur — If she keeps them to herself. {Continues dictation) 
"Such an arrangement would not sufficiently protect the in- 
terests of your family. It is not a tax on my earning power as 
you put it " 

Edith — ^But that's exactly what it is ! 

Mc Arthur {Waives objection and dictates) — ^'Tbecause I couldn't 
earn one-tenth of what I do, were it not for the prestige of the 
office." 

Edith — ^You are entirely too modest. 

Mc Arthur {Continues dictation) — "I will agree to partnership 
on the basis of one-third interest for the sum you suggest." 

Edith — ^But, Arthur, that isn't right ! 

Mc Arthur {Half in fun) — I thought business was business! 

Edith — I can't consent to a permanent drain on you. 

McArthur — Has that little trip to the Mayor's office so completely 
changed your point of view? 

Edith — 'Haven't you your career to make? 

McArthur — ^Ah, I see. M y career ! And you, the incarnation of 
propriety and honor, would have me take advantage of Walter's 
utter lack of business sense, and leave Laura to struggle along 
on the interest, say 6 per cent, upon $20,000 — $1,300 income 
per annum, when so far, though the business has been bad, after 
aU our salaries have been paid, she had over $50,000. That 
would be fair, eh? {Proceeds with dictation) "We will board 
with Laura. One household will mean economy and you can 
invest the amount which I pay " 

Ebittl {Astonished) — ^Youpay! How? 

McArthur — My father will lend me the sum. 

Edith — On what security? 

McArthur — On account of my portion of the estate he will some 
day leave me. Seeing you will help me like a modem wife to 
husband my resources. {Dictates) 'TTou can get your new 
friend, Mr. Blake, to invest the small sum for Laura at good 
interest. I stand ready to send you a draft for the whole amount 

62 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



when you have sent me the legal papers of partnership for my 
signature." 

Edith — So you leave everything to him? 

McAethub {Chuckling) — ^Well I see I am promoted without 
desert in your eyes from number two to number one. For chang- 
ing the center of the solar system, the suburban village Mayor an- 
swers about as weU as an Archbishop ! 

Scene 8 
{Enter Dick.) 

Dick — ^A special delivery letter {Looks at it) from Father; 
marked confidential. {Hands the look to McArthur) Sign 
here. I want to know what's in it. 

McAethue — ^Can't you read Con-fid-en-tial ? 

Dick — Oh, that's very well. I don't want to pry in y o u r business, 
but anything that concerns mother, I've got to know. Father 
told me to look out for her, and after what appeared in this 
morning's paper 

Edith— What, Dick? 

Dick — Lies ! 

Edith — Where's the paper? 

Dick — Safe. Where it won't spoil Mother's anniversary. {Points 
to the fire.) Give me the book, I'm off. But mind you, Mr. 
McArthur, what concerns Mother, I've got to know, if it i s con- 
fidential. I guess I can hold my tongue. {Exit.) 

McAethue — 'We've got to reckon with him ! 

Edith — I always told you so. 

McAethue — Wait a minute. {Takes the letter.) 

Edith — Haven't I a right to know? 

McAethue — ^It isn't addressed to Arthur McArthur & Co. Is it? 
{Edith gets up and busies herself about the files while McArthur 
reads.) 

McAethue {Reading) — Humph ! Pretty serious. That won't do. 

63 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Edith — Of course not. You've got to tell me what's in that letter. 

McArthue — Please get the copy of this morning's paper. 

Edith — ^Around the corner? (Starts to go.) 

McArthur — Stop. It's no use. You'll have to find out sooner 
or later. There's idle talk, Walter says, about himself and 
Helen Darneill. He believes it can't be kept out of the Pacific 
Coast "Tattler," and fears Laura will do something foolish. He 
declares there's no truth in the report of an impending engage- 
ment, but he wants it clearly understood that he considers him- 
self free to act as may seem best to him when he has the legal 
right to remarry. 

Edith — So we've acted barely in time. 

McArthuk — To take things into our own hands. 

Edith — And Walter can be so irresponsible and saddle his cares 
on you ! 

McArthur (Surprised) — ^On me? Isn't he the man who has 
made me, and who gives m e now a chance to amount to some- 
thing, and you the chance to act unselfishly by your friend? 

Edith (Ironically) — Laura, of course, is to remain a perpetual 
infant in arms, while she is allowed to think she manages the 
whole creation? 

Scene 9 
(Enter Mother Walter) 

Mother Walter — ^Can I have — (Looks at Edith) — a private in- 
terview ? 

McArthur— With Edith? 

Mother Walter — No, with you. 

Edith (Rising) — ^I'U go for that paper. 

McArthur — Through the conservatory! 

Edith — Never fear. 

McArthur — How can I serve you? 

Mother Walter — Me ? Have you ever known me to think of self ? 
If s about my daughter's affairs. 

64 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



McArthur — To be sure. 

Mother Walter — She's applied, would you believe it? for a posi- 
tion with the Associated Charities. 

McArthur — I thought she had done with philanthropy ! 

Mother Walter — ^As a pastime. 

MoAjrthur — ^But I thought 

Mother Walter — ^Yes. It seemed innocent enough — a diversion 
reviving an old accomplishment. ' But I have reason to believe 
that she is thinking of going on the stage professionally. 

McArthur — The stage? — The Associated Charities? 

MoTHEE Walter — ^You are puzzled. That's what makes clear to 
me the real trouble — inadequate support. Besides — ^if Richard 
pays heavily for his family, ifs human — at least masculine, to 
want to enjoy it. 

McArthur — ^You came opportunely — I have just received a letter 
from your son, allowing for an increase 

Mother Walter (Startled) — If he thought of Laura — ^himseH — 
he's up to mischief — conscience money. 

McArthur — I'm sorry, but it's confidential. Still, you might as 
well see whaf s in the newspaper. 

Mother Walter — ^Scandal ! In what paper ? 

McArthur — Edith has gone for it. At all events we must keep it 
from Mrs. Walter for to-day. 

Mother Walter — Yes. We've got to protect the wilful child 
against herseK. 

Scene 10 

(Edith re-entering, hears the last speech.) 
Edith — ^^I beg your pardon, but does not Laura deserve to be 

treated as an adult? 
Mother Walter — My years don't protect me from unsolicited 

advice ? 
Edith — Laura is my friend. 

65 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Mother Walter — A spinster can't be expected to have very con- 
vincing ideas about marriage. 

Edith — Arthur and I are married. 

Mother Walter (Amazed) — When? How? By vrhat minister? 

Edith — None. 

Mother Walter — Then you're not really married ! Do you want 
to bring additional disgrace on the house? Mr. McArthur — 
he understands the proprieties — you'll have to be married. 
Benedict Gregg will do it. Marriage is a Sacrament — its root 
is religion — its end, offspring properly reared. When a woman 
marries, she is no longer her own mistress. If she won't of her 
own accord respect the ties and duties, her elders must prevail 
upon her 

Edith — Cast your eyes on this item — Religious ties bind so much 
closer than a common-sense business partnership! (Hands 
Mother Walter the newspaper as Laura enters.) 

Laura (With forced gayety) — Well! Well! No luncheon? Sav- 
ing up for dinner? No holiday at the office? 

Mother Walter (Talking to herself) — This is dreadful! 

Laura (Looking about) — For once we agree. 

Mother Walter (To McArthur, handing him the paper so as not 
to attract Laura's attention to it) This makes it only more 
imperative. 

Laura — What scheme have you for me? 

Mother Walter — Only good news, daughter. Mr. McArthur and 
Edith are going to ask Mr. Gregg to perform the ceremony — 
they're going to be really married ! (Darting a look of imperious 
rebuke at Edith) So you can celebrate their engagement to-day. 

Laura (To ^(^i^/i)— Married? You? (To McArthur) You i-^o\ 
(Edith avoids her look.) 

McArthur — ^Your mother is practically correct — only in error as 
to Mr. Gregg. 

Mother Walter — ^Of course if they prefer another Minister — 
Mr. McArthur, may I have a word more with you? You might 

66 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



see me home. Edith wiU manage to lend you for that short time 
to an old lady. {Exeunt Mother Walter and McArthur.) 

Scene 12 

Laura — You know what marriage has meant for me ; all the shame, 
the bitterness? 

Edith — 'We expect less than you did. 

Laura— And will be discreeter than Eichard and I were? 

Edith — ^We start with more experience. 

Laura — Of the man? 

Edith (Coldly) — To be sure, he was irregular before he entered 
this office. 

Laura — ^And was prepared for domesticity by art ? 

Edith — Eichard has genius ; Arthur only talent. There's the dif- 
ference. Besides ' 

Laura — He has sowed his wild oats ; and have you ? 

Edith — I hope there's the moral superiority of the woman in 
my favor. 

Laura — I'm not so sure — of course we don't commit men's sins, 
but how about women's — just as damning in their petty way to 
all joy. After you have seen what I have done 

Edith — You haven't done anything. 

Laura — Exactly. Sins of omission — aU the worse. I tell you, 
Edith, reconsider ere it be too late. 

Edith — I think Mother Walter's desire to rebuke us for our ob- 
jection to an old-fashioned wedding has misled you. So far as 
Arthur and I are ever to be married, we are already. We wanted 
no expense — ^no show — ^no cant ; so we went to the Mayor's office. 

Laura — ^You are married? I thought I was protesting against 
what might be prevented. In your case, then, there's no "For 
better, for worse" — no 'TJntil death do us part" and no "Obey." 
Ha ! Ha ! You don't swear and profess to, and so — ^men be- 
ing what they are — and women, too, you may have yet t o d o it. 

67 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Edith — At least we take no mythical eternity into reckoning. We 
don't erect into a virtue the subjection of one of the contract- 
ing parties. 

Lauba — And that is progress? If, instead of cutting out what 
you caU cant phrases, you made them divine Fiats? Oh, ifs 
just there I erred. Only an impossible Ideal will serve to yoke 
our stubborn spirits to the burdens of life. Only eternity in 
view will keep us decent for the relations of time. 

Edith — ^You may be right, but ours is no skyscraper marriage, 
ifs a plain bungalow on the level. When we feel we need it, 
we may add a religious top story. And we propose to do our 
duty. We will live with you, and help you bear your trials. 

Laura — ^I'm afraid from now on, it is I shall be staying in y o u r 
house. 

Edith — ^You think Arthur and I are untrue, and would take ad- 
vantage to supplant you ? 

Lauea — God forbid! Only it behooves us old friends to be can- 
did. You have had to make your own way — get the training as 
clerk — stenographer — secretary — kindergartner. And, well, you 
kindly order my household for me. Now ifs the free woman, 
Sarah, in spite of herself, w^o is to drive out Hagar, the bond- 
woman — the incompetent decorative supernumerary. You were 
the business woman — became to all intents mother to my chil- 
dren. Now you are wife. In law you are in my house. In fact 
I am in yours. What am I ? A girl, given all sorts of futile ac- 
complishments — ^I become a wife. Maternity is not an economic 
function. Indeed, it brings dependence — barely tolerable with 
love, and which usually undermines love. Now, I am no wife 
any more, and no mother. I have no trade, no profession. Were 
the truth told harshly I am a dependent, a parasite. The com- 
petitive system requires that every one earn his support, remain 
an infant, or lapse iato the parasite. A parasite can have no 
friend. 

Edith — Oh, it is not so bad as that. I am not changed. 



68 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Laura — ^You are not perhaps, though everything between us is. 
You cannot be my friend as before. You are sorry for me, of 
course, but you don't respect me. I must stop playing at mother, 
philanthropist, at daubing, at dancing. Some one thing I must 
d o — if I am to be anything. 

Edith — Countless women don't. 

Laura — ^Of course, had I large, unearned means of my own, it 
wouldn't appear necessary that I should d o anything to b e 
anything. I might deceive myself into thinking myself some- 
thing. Then of course you would have respect for me, though 
I should, probably, deserve less even than now. 

Edith — ^You are too bitter, Laura. 

Laura — Can I help it? I keep my anniversary — ^for the chil- 
dren's sake — in a forlorn, unavowed hope — foolishly — that it will 
bring him back. You deny me your confidence, and marry with- 
out a word — in indecent haste. 

Edith — Special reasons 

Laura — Oh, of course. Marion's, who knows, to stop talk? — 
save a jeopardized reputation? Anyway, there's one bright 
aspect. We'll change the affair to-night from pathetic rem- 
iniscence — to a joyful forward-looking celebration. You are 
competent and may yet be happy, as you deserve to be. I had 
hoped — Oh, God knows what — I am incompetent still, wretched, 
utterly miserable. 

Scene 13 

{Enter Mc Arthur.) 

Laura — Let me congratulate you. The choice you have made does 
your judgment credit. Now for the honeymoon. 

McArthur — Edith does not approve of any. 

Laura — Ah, yes. Your whole life a continuous one is much better. 
(With forced gayety) How you have supplied a reason for my 
eccentric celebration ! Now we have cause for rejoicing. {Exit 
■ Laura.) 

69 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Scene 14 

Edith — I'm afraid our best intentions are thwarted. 

McArthue — ^Laura takes it strangely. 

Edith — I almost believe she felt aU along that you were hers! 

McAethur — ^As I thought you were. 

Edith — We scheme with our heads all sorts of heroic benevolence, 

but deep in our hearts lurk selfish motives that actuate us 

unawares. 
McArthur — Now you are scarcely doing yourself justice. 
Edith — Have you ever really loved Laura? 

McArthue — ^I may have cherished absurd romantic dreams, got 
from the poets, I fancy, and worked up to order in youth — in- 
volving far-off violet eternities — vague sUvery moonshine ideals 
and roseate starshot auroras. 

Edith — ^I am ashamed to confess my folly, but I want you to 
care for me in that way too. 

McAethur — iSuch sentiments, I fear, could not endure the test 
of life together. 

Edith — Oh, don't plead foresight and adult judgment. I'm not 
she, I know! Only a remote figment of mists and refracted 
light — or an unpractical, spoiled child — paradoxical and therefore 
incomprehensible, whom you drape at wiU vdth fancies and — 
enhalo, only such an one can be so loved by you belated men. 

McArthur {ChucTcling) — Such translunary passions I thought 
were survivals — ruled out forever from our world of mutual re- 
spect, fair play, regard for each other's spiritual rights of ini- 
tiative and privacy? 

Edith — Nonsense. 

McAethur — ^Common sense. 

Edith — I'm furious with myself. For aU our theories and good 
resolutions we can't escape human nature. 

McArthur — Naturallv. 



70 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Edith — ^And it's quite clear to me now that two households can- 
not live under one roof. 

McArthur — ^If we find we cannot, then we will not. 

Edith — I have an uneasy feeling that all we've done to help Laura 
will only make matters worse. 

MoAethur — Because at the bottom — who knows — s h e had noth- 
ing to do with what we did. 

Edith — Ah, Arthur, I'm ashamed of it, but I would like to 
think so. 

MoAnTHUR — At all events, Laura is keyed up to high feeling — 
she has to adjust herself to altered relations. Let us keep this 
news from her for to-day — the shame of its irony. 

Scene 15 

{Enter servant and Dick.) 

Dick — ^Dinner is going to be served here. Heigho — aren't we 
sly? It's uncle Arthur now. Played hooky this morning, 
both of you, just to make trouble for yourselves. 

Edith — 'Arthur, we have our elaborate toilets to make. 

McArthue — ^We ought, I suppose, to clear up the office for the 
festivities. 

Dick — Oh, no. Just let the screen hug — dear me, thaf s vulgar — 
{Moves it with antic grimaces) no, embrace at proper distance 
the paraphernalia. Useful husband {screen) shuts out angry 
world from superior spouse: {Pointing to the typewriter) use- 
ful little thing, never out of sorts — clicking night and day for 
dear life. 

Edith — You foolish boy. 

Dick {Full of boisterous fun) — ^You just ought to have seen the 
fun — before lunch. Frederika playing husband — ^Evelyn, wife 
— Cedric, child — beautiful tableau! See here, you may need 
an object lesson. Evelyn — wife — paid too much attention to 
child, Cedric ; husband — ^Frederika — bored — jealous — had a right 
to be sole center of wifely interest — ^So pummelled wife, Evelyn, 

71 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



who made Sunday supplement faces and went ofE into hysterics. 
Child, Cedric, whooped for joy. 
Edith — ^Where did you learn such barbarous ideas of the family? 
BiCK — Don't have to learn. You see ifs this way: wives need to 
be kept in subjection, or husbands are slaves. On the whole, it's 
best to keep up the man's courage for his daily struggle with 
the world. Beating the wife keeps him in training and im- 
parts self-confidence. So a good wife ought to enjoy her mission. 

McArthur — There's progressive doctrine for you ! 

Edith — ^You're a savage. 

Dick — If everything were always shipshape. Auntie, you'd have 
to blow up the old hull for diversion, if she were the ark with 
all the animals in it. 

Edith — ^And to let the influence of the parents mould the ideas 
of the children — Poor Laura ! 

McAethur — 'Mistaken self-sacrifices ! 

Dick — None of them for me. Turn the boys loose, and the girls 
too, and they'll whack each other into fine form. 

Edith — You must go, Arthur, and get ready. 

Dick — ^At last, education, sadly neglected, begins ! 

MoArthtir — I'll have to take a hand yet in yours, you young 
rascal. 

Dick — ^Wish you luck, Uncle, the more the merrier. 
{Exeunt Edith and McArthur.) 

Scene 16 
{Enter Mother Walter. Looks about to see if they are alone.) 
Mother Walter — Do you know the awful news, Dick? 
Dick — Mother must not. 
Mother Walter — 'She must be prepared. 
Dick — For lies? 

Mother Walter — What makes you think ? 

Dick — Think ! I k n o w Father. 

72 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Mother Walter (Sighs) — I wish I could believe in him as you do. 

Dick — 'You don't understand real men anyhow. Grandmother. 
They've got to be good, eh? Well, sense and pluck will do for 
me. History's all about men who smashed laws and kept things 
humming. 

Mother Walter — ^You're a heathen. 

Dick (Hums derisively) — "0 mother dear, Jerusalem!" 

Mother Walter — 'If Mr. Gregg should hear you. 

Dick — He wouldn't mind. He knows I'm right, though he's got 
to make out lady-like manners are the whole duty of man. 
That's his job. 

Mother Walter — ^You're just trying to shock your poor grand- 
mother. You don't mean it. 

Dick — ^What I do mean is, I'd rather be Father than any man 
alive. 

Scene 17 

(Enter Laura dressed for dinner. Starts to count seats, ar- 

ranges cards at places. Vacant chair of Walter. Decorates in 

his taste with 'boughs. Evidence of the cult of Walter in the two 

pictures ty the organ.) 

Mother Walter — ^You carry the whimsical notion pretty far — 
decorating the pictures of bride and groom. 

Laura — Your son doesn't cease to be the father of our children. 

Mother Walter — ISTor you, I suppose, his wife, though you de- 
serted him in his hour of temptation. 

Laura — I almost fear there is truth in your cruel way of putting 
the matter. But my faith remains unshaken. 

Dick — That's right. Mother, I'm with you in that. 

Mother Walter (Loohs at her, puzzled) — Suppose he should 
never return? that he met — that he met his ideal? Could you 
forgive him still? 

Laura — ^Forgive? Yes 

Mother Walter — Only the secretly guilty forgive. 

73 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Laura — Suppose I admit that too? There are divers sorts of 

spiritual unfaithfulness in a wife of which she may be guilty 

unawares. 
Mother Walter — But I — I opened his eyes, you may be sure, 

and he has punished you in letting you depend on McArthur. 
Laura — What do you mean? 
Mother Walter — 'I tried to obtain an increase of your allowance 

to stop your restless looking for a career. 
Laura — 'And you found? 
Mother Walter (Ironically) — That he has been thoughtful to 

foresee your need of increased income. 
Laura — ^You mean that my support doesn't come from Kichard 

at all? 
Mother Walter — Partly. I infer it. 

Laura — lAnd your motive, pray, in imparting your suspicions ? 
Mother Walter — To prepare you for the worst. 
Dick — If you try to break Mother's spirit. Grandmother, I wish 

you luck. She's got fighting blood, and I'll bet on Mother. 
Mother Walter — ^I'm challenging her courage to meet the future 

on principle, not on blind faith and sentiment. 

Scene 18 
(Enter McArthur.) 

Dick — Hurrah for Uncle Arthur ! 

Laura — ^Mr. McArthur, I have just heard that Eichard Walter's 
provision for his family amounts — to shifting his responsibilities 
on to your broad shoulders. 

McArthur — Hardly; the house is yours, the business is yours. 
I have bought a third interest, which I claim. I see no im- 
propriety in paying to his family what I owe to my friend and 
teacher. 

Laura — ^I am no business woman, but I fear you have kept me 
unduly in ignorance. I cannot, you know, be your ward. 

74 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Mc Arthur — Surely I can be your trusted agent. My mar- 
riage 

Laura — Makes any draft on your time and strength unjust. 

Mother Walter — ^Again your pride, Laura. I wanted to pre- 
pare you for contingencies, not to precipitate trouble. 

Laura — It is too late now. Mother Walter. You have aroused me. 
I am grateful for your help. Being awake, and aware, I must 
obey my own sense of right. 

Scene 19 ' 

(Enter Edith.) 

McAethur {To Edith) — Laura misunderstands our relations en- 
tirely. She thinks we are guilty of putting her in a humiliating 
situation. 

Edith — I claim, dear Laura, the right for my husband and my- 
self to discharge in full, with interest, all we owe Mr. Walter. 

Laura — To his family, not to his ex- wife. 

McArthur — We are all one household. We cannot discriminate. 

Laura — 'What might be handsome in you, would be pitiful in me. 

Edith — Since the question has come up so unfortunately — let 
me state that for friendship's sake we can no longer impose 
upon you. 

Laura — What I said of Hagar ? 

Edith — iWe have no right to rob you any longer of your solace 
and sense of dignity in the present unhappy situation. 

Mother Walter — There you are right. 

Laura — Grandmother, it is from now on not a matter of your 
conscience, but mine. (Marion and Gregg enter) 1 shall 
answer Edith at the proper time. (Laura moves the place-card 
away from seat left of vacant seat.) 

75 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Scene 20 

Laura — Ah, it is good of you to come, Benedict. 
Gregg — Marion excused me from attendance at a tedious parochial 
function. 

Laura {To Marion) — That was very thoughtful of you. 

Marion {To Edith) — Of course, I hardly know whether I can con- 
gratulate you yet. 

Gregg — My dear Mr. and Mrs. McArthur 

'Marion {To Gregg) — Will you acknowledge a civil marriage? 

Greg<5I — My dear, it is unfortunate that they do not see things 
as we do — that their relation is a sacrament — that in times of 
stress, dignity and self-control can by ordinary mortals be com- 
passed only on condition of an acknowledged supernatural bond. 

Edith — We have made no professions, envisage no transcendental 
mysteries. We are equal partners. 

Gregg — ^An excellent foundation to build on. 

Laura — ^I fear me, you wiU find it sink imder the superstructure. 
I tell you, marriage is mockery or it is a spiritual relation, 
higher, deeper, larger than fancy, liking, convenience, passion; 

' a call to heroism, to devotion — each schooling himself to make 
the actual life continuously suggest the unseen progress to- 
gether of souls — ^and to qualify for the satisfaction of new 
mutual needs. 

Mother Wai/ter — Now you are uttering the very oracles of God. 

Laura — ^I have preached them my homily — ^I, that should not. I 
also congratulate my two friends, Arthur and Edith, that they 
will not commit sacrilege by cowardly conformity with usages, 
the significance of which they fail yet to recognize. 

Scene 21 
{Enter the children in perfect order.) 
Marion — Ah, what luscious place cards ! 

76 



BEYOND DISILLUSION" 



Laura — My last daubs. 

Maeion — Think of burying such a talent ! 

Vacant Oregg Mother F. C. 
A. M<?A. Edith McA. 

Laura Dick Marion E. 

Gregg — Exquisite decorations. 

Laura — So far as possible in Richard's taste. 

Marion — And see! Eichard's vacant chair! How deliciously 
sentimental. Does you honor, darling, though I couldn't do it. 

Mother Walter (Caustically) — ^You would fill it no doubt 
speedily with the first newcomer? 

Laura — Oh, Mother! ISTow friends, you may observe our new 
bridegroom is at the head of the table and our bride at the foot, 
her foster daughters at her right and left hands, Marion and 
Grandmother to fend them respectively from harm. I am the 
guest of honor and Dick is my cavalier. The unexpected clerical 
guest is appointed guardian of Grandmother's conscience. (All 
sit down.) 

Marion — A most ingenious arrangement. (Mother Walter urges 
Gregg to speak.) 

Gregg (Rises and clears his throat) — As ofiicial keeper of the 
conscience of Mrs. Walter, senior, I am at her suggestion em- 
boldened to take upon myself the office of master of ceremonies 
on this festive occasion. At banquets, first the culinary master- 
pieces, then the remnants of wit and oratory. I propose the re- 
versal of the vulgar order. Let speeches and courses alter- 
nate — layer upon layer — the fat and the lean. Let us open 
then with hearty good wishes that our guest of honor — self-ap- 
pointed, although as hostess providing the repast — ^may rejoice 
in many and ever happier returns of this day so rightly sacred 
— and that its present celebration prove an omen of the de- 
voutly to be wished reunion of the parted family. (Sits down.) 

77 



BEYOND disillusion- 



Mother Walter — That is a fine speech, Laura, and should be 
taken in the spirit in which it is conceived and delivered on 
behalf of us all, and I should like to add — {With comic shyness) 
— although I cannot make congratulatory addresses with becom- 
ing fluency, having entered club life too late (Adjusts her 
spectacles and faces Edith), that however seriously opinions 
may sunder us, we do notwithstanding, before the first course, 
most earnestly desire that our friends now civilly married — 
who repudiate Holy Matrimony — shall, in spite of their cor- 
rectness from the world's point of view, and we trust the entire 
propriety and felicity of their ways, come to recognize, ere it 
be too late, the error of their notion. 

Edith — I'm afraid that if all goes well with us — as you pray — 
we ^von't learn much. 

Marion — ^Oh, you're bound to learn a lot anyhow. I can tell you, 
once a woman's married her education begins. 

McArthur — That is — ^the man's elimination? 

Edith — Oh, Arthur, you're so tactless ! 

McArthur (Chuclcling) — Didn't I say so? 

Scene 23 
(Servant comes in and announces Mr. Lightfoot.) 

Laura — Show him in, pray. 

Mother Walter — ^You can't mean to have him at this meal? 

Laura — ^You have, I believe, yourself made him part of the family 
— taking him into your confidence. He should be one of my 
witnesses to-night, when you are all gathered together to pass 
judgment upon me. 

Marion — Judgment ? 

Laura — ^ Judgment ! 

Mother Walter — ^I will surrender my seat before you let him 
occupy Eichard's. 

Marion (To Mother Walter) — ^You see, she will fill it with the 
newcomer ! 

78 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



{Enter Dancing Master.) 

Me. Lightfoot — I must apologize for being so late. 

Lauba — It is w e must beg to be excused for sitting down before 
your arrival. I feared you might be delayed as you intimated. 

Me. Lightfoot — But you fill me with confusion. A decorated 
chair for me ! Too much honor is done an humble professor of 
an art long since extinct. 

Geegg — ^I much fear I must spoil a flattering illusion. Had not 
I come, after excusing myself, you would not have been thus 
embarrassed. 

Lauea — I begged you, Mr. Lightfoot, to come for the express pur- 
pose of repeating to my family what you said this morning to 
me. But since then things have occurred, and words have been 
spoken that ripened my decision irrespective of any opinions my 
family and my intimate friends may cherish. 

Me. Lightfoot — The desire of my life fulfilled ? It is then to be ? 
Ah, I am very selfish. I dare not take the responsibility. 

MoTHEE Waltee — ^What responsibility? 

Laura {To Mr. Lightfoot) — Do you repent then of your offer? 

Mr. Lightfoot — Ah, no. Not that. 

Laura — Then I beg you to understand that aU the responsibility 
is mine. I, of my own free will, take this step. 

Mother Walter — What's all this about? 

Laura {Rises) — Oh, don't be alarmed. Mother Walter. It is only 
a matter of a good resolution. From now on, Edith, I cease to 
be a mere economic dependent, and, Grandmother, an amateur 
mother. 

Mother Walter — Excellent ! At last you recognize your vocation ! 

Lauea — I cease from now on, Dick dear, to be an indifferent 
philanthropist and sociologist; and a make-believe artist, Mr. 
McArthur. This much I owe you aU, and in chief to him 
whose seat was vacant to-night largely, I confess, by my fault. 
He has always at least been true to his vision. Whatever punish- 
ment has come to me, I can therefore endure. {Sits down.) 

79 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Greg<3 — ^A good resolution is a happy omen. I congratulate you, 
Laura. 

MoTHEB Walteb — For once she acts from rational principle, and 
not from impulse, passion and pride. 
{Servant enters.) 

Sbbyant — "A word for Mr. Lightfoot." (Hands him a scrawled 
note.) 

Mb. Lighttoot (As soon as he sees it, takes letter out of his 
pocJcet) — I was almost going to forget. At the door a young 
man handed me this letter for you, Mrs. Walter, which he 
begged me to promise I would deliver into your own hands. 

Mother WAiiTEE— One of her worthless chronic cases ? 

Mb. Lightpoot — He was well attired, and not in the least 
obsequious. 

Marion — A book agent, I wager, selling a set of classics for wed- 
ding anniversaries. 

Dick — Don't open the letter, Mother, ifs a piece of impertinence 
to force upon you in this fashion his communication, whatever 
its purport. 

Laura — Have you an idea what it is? (Tearing it open.) 

Dick — -I have, and I object. 

Laura — ^Well, my dear boy, you heard what I resolved? I can't 
have you protect me from annoyances. I must fight my own 
fights, (Laura is greatly perturbed as she reads, hut exercises 
self-control) Is the young man waiting for an answer? 

Servant — He is, madam. 

Me. Lightfoot — ^I fear I have been an unconscious bearer of evil 
tidings. 

Laura (To the maid) — ^Tell the reporter that I have no comment 
to make for the press. 

Marion — Give us all the benefit of the billet doux. 

Laura — Only a piece of news that concerns me personally. (Laura 
rises, pushing bach her chair) 1 can no longer eat the 

BREAD OF THE MAN WHO WAS MY HUSBAND. 

80 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



MoTHEB Walteb (Alarmed) — ^Let the children be dismissed. 

Laura — No, this evening I am still mistress here. They shall stay 
to hear from me, not from you or from malicious busybodies, 
what concerns their mother. 

McAsTHUE — It is only after all a miserable newspaper story. 

Lauba — 'Have you better information? 

McArthur — I had a letter to-day 

Laura — Then let me see it ! 

McArthur — It was confidential. 

Laura — Does it contradict the rumor? 

McArthur — Take my word, it denies the truth of the reports. 

Laura — Anticipating, of course, their publication? 

MoArthub — iAnd begging me to protect you. 

Laura — ^Yes, I see. All day I felt I was a child kept in seemly 
ignorance of my own affairs. I am strong enough to face the 
truth. Does he deny in spirit as well as fact — as to marriage? 

McArthur — If you press me, he affirms his right to do as he shall 
see fit. 

Laura — 'At the erpiration of the term? Then the newspapers 
are merely premature. (To Lightfoot) I accept your generous 
offer, on condition — I may repay you whatever I shall have cost 
you to launch. (To the family) He chooses to consider me as 
a speculation — ^I grant him the right to do so. 

Mother Walter — The villain! Think of the scandal for the 
children. 

Laura (Bitterly) — You can invent excuses. 

Gregg (Rising with solemn authority) — ^Here is your duty — ^with 
your children — whatever Richard may do. 

Laura — >! can stay here only as his hireling — ^the governess to his 
children. On a business basis, the only opie I can in self-respect 
allow, I should be dismissed for incompetency. So then I, in 
his stead, dismiss myself. Let Edith, who renders the service, 
enjoy the reward. I must make a career for myself. 

81 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Mother Walter — ^But the scandal? 

Laura (Scornfully) — ^A stage name will protect you. Treat me 
as one dead or gone on a long journey, and nobody out of this 
present company will know what I have done. 

Mother Walter — I cannot stay to countenance this. 

Laura — Stay, for the children will need you. Edith's marriage 
has settled everything for them. She who manages, fosters and 
directs, is the real mother of the human beings. Let Edith be 
acknowledged for what she is — I cede all my rights to her — and 
when I am in a position to repay 

Edith — Never. Hitherto I have pitied you, now I respect you. 
But I insist that you also respect me. You can't be your hus- 
band's hireling — I'm not the hireling of my friend. I beg leave 
to g i V e my services. 

Gregg — ^But, Laura, God has given the children to you. 

Laura — The unconscious infants were mine, and He withheld the 
talent for their education. 

Gregg — Let at least the children speak for themselves. 

Laura — ^Very well. I accept Dick as their spokesman. I will, if 
you choose, abide by his decision. 

Mother Walter — Dick, save your mother from this folly ! 

Gregg — Think of your little brother and your sisters! 

Dick — iI'U think of Mother first. Father did wrong, but he's a 
great artist — thaf s better than coddling a fellow. Mother, do 
what you think right for yourself. Be a great woman. I'd 
rather have that — beautiful, free, equal to Father. 

Laura — Won't you miss me? 

Dick — Yes, but I'll think of you, if I don't see you. I don't 
blame you for not wanting to stay in this house. I'd go to work 
myself, except that I need an education to be up to Father and 
you some day — and see if I don't repay dollar for dollar. Since 
Father left, I have been keeping account. And you needn't 
worry about things. Auntie Edith can do better for us. 

82 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Mother Walter — ^If Laura is as mad as this, the children are 
better off without her. Edith and I wiU do her duty by them. 

Laura — Thank you, Mother Walter. I needed to hear just that 
from you, to give me the fullest satisfaction in the step I take. 
(Comes bach down steps) And don't suppose I leave out of 
anger against Richard. He is beautiful, whatever he does and 
appears to be ; or how could he have done things that stay beau- 
tiful from year to year? I shall make myself worthy of the 
marriage that did not take place — now — never can — ^but which 
should and might have been ours — a comradeship for highest 
development of courage, strength, service, aspiration by becom- 
ing truly myself, living as he for my work — my art; and I 
shaU be dead to his children, till I have a right to live and claim 
them as mine. (Dick starts to embrace his mother) No, Dick, 
lefs shake hands like comrades. Keep account strictly and — 
we will both buy our freedom. Mr, Lightfoot, your arm. 
Good-by. 

Gregg — You will repent. 

Laura — God knows. 

Marion — Don't worry, ifs only a freak. She'll return. 

Laura — ^When I have become mistress of my own soul. 

Cedric — Sha'n't we have the "Find-out Club" all the time now? 

Evelyn — I needn't keep going over to m y grandmother ! 

Frederika — ^You little fools, shut up. Good-by, Mother, you're 
great. You'll succeed. (Laura, overcome with emotion, exit 
precipitately.) 



(Curtain) 



83 



ACT IV 
MEETING THEIR DEEPER SELVES 



ACT IV 



Scene 1 



Estate on Berkley hills. In front a meadow full of escholtzias. 
In rear of stage a slight ridge or knoll, the site for the proposed 
great palace of Helen, overlooking the day, and looking to the 
ocean through the Golden Gate. The sky line of Tamalpais to the 
right over the ridge: indications of the lights of the city to the 
left. On the right of the stage a eucalyptus grove, and a belated 
golden acacia in bloom. To the left, one or two eucalyptus trees, 
and dense evergreen shrubbery, behind which is concealed the 
improvised stage on which Laura is to dance. In the fore, to the 
right, is a diminutive Japanese garden, with toy tea-house, gold- 
fish pond, of all of which Blake is very proud. Had it made himself! 
Curtain rises on Blake, McArthur and Edith, talking. 

Blake — ^Yonder are the city lights — all up those hills they climb 
to the twin peaks, an ideal couple — wife a little shorter than 
husband — see? It's a wonderful city, isn't it? has New York, 
I teU you, beaten outright. Just give it a little time. 

McArthur — These eucalyptus groves are strangely picturesque. 

Blake — I suppose to Eastern eyes the ragged ugly things look 
interesting. But they are no good for lumber — those crazy blue 
gums make windbreaks against trades — that's all. 

Edith — WiU we see the dancer on the dark stage? 

Blake — My stepdaughter, eh? {Laughs to himself.) 

Edith — ^Your daughter? 

Blake (Gaily) — Oh, no blood kin of mine — ^not within the forbid- 
den degrees anyway. 

Edith — ^By marriage? 

Blake (Going up to stage) — That's just one of my litle jokes 
I'll have to explain later. We've reckoned on the moon — a 
string of electric lights — the switchboard's here (Turns on 
lights) and the musicians sit back there up to their eyes in the 
scrub. (Turns on lights at their seats.) 

87 



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McAiiTHUK — ^And over there is the site? 

Blake — Eight you are ! There goes the million dollar shack the 
very day Miss Helen DarneiU gets to be reasonable. And I 
tell you, that mutual friend of ours — "Walter — has the plans. A 
tiptop Alhambra wiU soon peer out to the sea, like a golden snail 
sticking up its horns in front of its shell at the city that has 
New York beaten. 

Edith — Backed by a eucalyptus grove — in full view of the sleep- 
ing Indian Bride by the Golden Gate, Mt. Tamalpais. 

Blake — Name correct — you are a wonder — to get your bearings 
so quickly. 

Edith — iBaedeker is good in a foreign country. And I understand 
you are willing to tolerate the rest of the U. S. A. as a mere 
convenient political appendage to the Golden State ? 

Blake — we don't exactly say that, but you've got the native 
sons diagnosed. The big trees and the Pacific Ocean, and the 
Sierras — they will mount to a fellow's head, you know. Now 
you must come and take tea at the tea-house in the Japanese 
garden. (Helps Edith over a steep arched damhoo bridge on 
to an island of rockeries covered with ferns and rank blossom- 
ing growths.) 

Edith— What goldfish ! 

McArthur — And this little waterfall keeps up its chatter so you 
don't have to talk. 

Blake — Oh, I'm no misogjmist myself, but the Japs have got their 
women folk in training. (Seats Edith in miniature tea-house) 
Only thing they really beat us on, 

Edith — 'You are not very gallant. (Japanese woman brings tea.) 

Blake — Guess it's not entirely due to the men — the horrid little 
dolls are grateful to be treated as useful domestic animals, 
they're so unattractive. (McArthur and Edith look nervously 
at Japanese woman.) 

Blake (Laughs) — ^Oh, don't worry about my remarks. She's un- 
spoiled yet ! Can't understand a word we say. 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Edith — Seriously, you are not so old-fashioned? 

Blake — Well, just fancy a maid of Nippon making a likely suitor 

for her hand keep an offer of a million dollar house open three 

long years. 
Edith — Miss Darneill has a right estimate of her value. 

Blake — That she has. Don't know a thing yet, but it's got to 
come to a head. That's why I engaged this artiste to dance for 
us — Richard Walter on the spot to agree to the building, and 
you, his friends, to witness the bargain. By the way, I hear Mrs. 
Walter has left home? 

McAethue — Unfortunately, she went on to New York, assumed a 
stage name, and never revealed it to us, because we naturally 
opposed her step. We have felt honor bound to respect her 
jealous privacy. 

Blake— Residence, P. 0. Box No. X. Y. Z. 

MoAethue — Just so. 

Blake — Hard on the orphans. 

Edith — 'We take care of them. 

Blake — 'So their guardians came all the way out here to make 
their father settle up for their benefit ? 

MoAethue — Walter is very willing. 

Blake — Oh, of course. Wouldn't look well when you're held up 
in such a cause. Make him put up a lot. He makes money 
hand over fist, and I'll lend him all he wants. Besides, if he 
takes this contract, his commission will be a whole pile. Dig 
the fi[lthy lucre out of him. I'll let you have a pickaxe and a 
stick or two of dynamite on credit. 

Edith (Changing the subject) — I suppose Miss Adeline Alden is 
very beautiful. (Laughing.) 

Blake — Are you on to me? Well I haven't seen her — but you 
see when I was called upon to form a syndicate to launch a 
yoimg woman of great talent who danced to music — well, I saw 
my chance. I agreed on condition that she'd dance first on the 
coast privately for my friends, and to some music Walter adores. 

89 



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So she's the daughter of my cash, you see, and my cash is, up to 
date, my better half. Thaf s the way I make out the relation. 
{Laughs loudly) You'll excuse me, won't you? I'm afraid 
one of these confounded electricians or musicians, worse luck, 
won't be on to his job and then 

Scene 2 

Edith — I have a strange suspicion. 

Mc Aethue — That our host is only in part Walter's friend ? 

Edith — Thaf s evident. He's jealous of him. 

MoAethue — ^Because he wants to interest Walter in this dancer 
that he's launching — perhaps on purpose? 

Edith — ^Thaf s all seK-evident, Arthur — but don't you have a 
presentiment? 

MoAethue — Never knew you to indulge in such psychic research 
phenomena. 

Edith — That shows how well you know me by this ! 

MoAethue — WeU, what's your unaccountable misgiving? 

Edith — ^WeU, if this Miss Alden were Laura ? 

MoAethue — ^Bah! I saw her picture in the newspaper. {Takes 
it out of overcoat pocket and shows it to Edith.) 

Edith — Some likeness. 

MoAethue — Not much. And she couldn't have got to the top in 

a year. 
Edith — Oh, you can't say I 
MoAethue — And how could she have a syndicate to back her, 

without any business sense? 
Edith — Talent would suffice. 
MoAethue — It's very unlikely. 
Edith — ^But miracles always happen. 
MoAethue — ^Like our marriage, eh? 

90 



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Scene 3 

(Re-enter Blake, introducing Patterson, a tall, languid, eager- 
eyed youth, witJi large gesticulatory hands; his favorite attitude, 
leaning forward from the hips, face downward and hands spread 
over his abdomen, with fixed, absent gaze.) 

BiiAKE — Mr. WiUiam Foster Patterson, I want to introduce you 
to my Eastern friends, Mrs. McArthur — Mr. McArthur. 

Patteeson — ^It is a rare privilege. 

Blake — ^He's the tail to the comet — writes her up in erudite style 
and blazons her coming and corruscates her going — to use his 
dialect. 

Patterson' — ^You make me blush for my modest talents. 

Blake — I tell you he can lilt you the praise of the Golden Gate 
and acclimatize you anesthetically. Look out or you will exfoliate 
pahnwise under Ms hypnotic gaze. 

Patterson — You make fun of me. 

Blake — Dear me, no. At that Hamadryad show of yours, didn't 
your passes develop umbelliferous florets all over the natural man 
of me? I'm off to inspect the properties while you look after 
my guests. 

Scene 4 

Edith (To maJce talk) — You're a native son? 

Patterson — Hardly so fortunate. 

McArthur — From the East, then? 

Patterson — ^Yes, from under the classic shades of Eeno, Nevada ! 

Edith (Laughing) — To have missed the distinction by so little! 

Patterson — Not te have been irradiated at birth by yonder 
scintUlant nimbus about the bay, that obfuscates caliginously 
the Neapolitan! Have my orders, you see! In sight of that 
Indian Brunhilda that is kissed asleep every night by a blood- 
red Sigurd. 

91 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Edith — ^You needn't fiU out onr hosf s burlesque description of 
you. You have become enamored of the coast? 

Patterson — ^Who wouldn't? Just you climb Diablo — Spanish for 
Devil. 

McArthuk — On muleback? 

Patterson — And gaze at the panorama of old rose, voluptuous 
hills, leopard-spotted with black live oaks and what they call 
huckleberry trees — or see them in May, so green that lettuce looks 
brown beside them, and watch the grey lines of eucalyptus charg- 
ing to the summit — one or two of them ahead of their fellows 
waving ragged banners from the crested sky line — and then the 
mystical groves of redwood. 

Edith — Enough to turn a cobbler into a poet ! 

McAethur — ^And you turned of course? 

Patterson ( With offended vanity after a silence) — I didn't, I was 

bom a poet ! 
McAbthur — Ah, I congratulate you! 
Edith — And your theme — ^the Coast. 

Patterson — ^AUegories. I made the last grove play for the Bo- 
hemian high jinks. 

MoAethue — And that is? 

Patterson — Oh, I'm sorry, you haven't of course been initiated 
yet — but Blake bought his way in California — extraordinary 
luck — ^no taste — but a generous patron. I'm one of those who 
steer him by the shoals. 

Edith — ^Must be lucrative business. 

McAethur — And you, of course, brought this Miss to his 

attention ? 

Patterson — I had the honor. 

McAethur — ^You know where she comes from? 

Patterson — No more than the papers say. 

McAethur — ^Unmarried ? 

92 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Pattebson — I was never sufficiently impertinent to inquire. Man- 
ners aren't obsequious out here, sir. 
Edith — Unless you want to win a woman. 
Patteeson — Hardly. 

McArthue — Or extract money from a god of finance. 
Patterson — Never. 

Scene 5 
(Enter Blake, rubbing his hands.) 

Blake — Ho ! my boy Pat— Patrick, son of Patter, I'll teach you a 
brand new trick. 

Patterson (Respectfully) — And that, my dear sir? (McArthur 
and Edith exchange amused glances at Pat's change of manner.) 

Blake — ^A new way to win a woman, and I'll tell you, you'll need 
all the tricks in creation to bag your ''^Adeline." She's a witch. 
Writing her up in flamboyant style isn't going to work. 

Patterson — ^And you leave her to tell me ? 

Blake — Banished from the sacred precincts. No males wanted! 

Edith — ^Might I go? 

Blakd— To the Green room roofed with sky? Oh, that's dif- 
ferent. Nymph attendant on Diana! (To Patterson) You see, 
my friend, one retains scraps of mythology from your Hama- 
dryads. (Beckons to Japanese woman — makes himself under- 
stood by signs — Exit Edith with same.) 

Scene 6 

Patterson — Well, the new Hermes Trismegistos trick? 
Blake (Chuckling) — 'Wait a bit. 

Patterson — ^No, I'll pay cash down in advance with mine. (Gets 
MS. out of pocket.) 

Blake (With mock alarm,) — You sha'n't give my guest locomotor 
ataxia. 

93 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Patterson — With my cryptic incantations? But your guest just 

now expressed great curiosity. 
McAethur — Not about your poem, sir. 
Patterson — About its subject. 

Blake — ^I teU you, man — I'd be delighted later when the ladies 

Patterson — ^And you can show off as the patron of the muses, eh ? 

Blake — The^re natural connoisseurs. 

Patterson — ^I need your opinions as gentlemen, as males. 

Blake — H'm! Salacious? That's another matter. {Settles 

with interest into seat and pulls Mc Arthur into another.) 
Patterson — Not in the least. Only it takes brains, and women, 

I have it on authority, think with their complexions. 
Blake — ^And we with our feet. (Puts his up on another chair) 

Nothing for it, McArthur, our judicial intellects are appealed 

to: select, intelligent audience. 

Patterson — First of all — I distinguish between a man and his 
soul. 

Blake (To McArthur) — ^A woman and her — spirit; for Ma- 
homet, who had a whole harem to judge from, decreed that 
they had no soul. Only celibates and mooncalves opine other- 
wise. Patterson verbiage! 

Patterson — My poem is entitled: "Her Eefusal." I imagine it 
spoken by the heroine who jilts her adorer because he only 
loves what he sees of her. 

Blake (Uproariously) — Excellent, my lad! You should love the 
invisible, unspeakable, unmentionable! 

Patterson (Reads quichly for fear of missing his chance) — 

"Her Eefusal" 
Oh, lover, if thou love my soul 

Deeper than twilight dream. 
How canst thou more than pity dole 

To her — woe's me — 'I seem? 

94 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



BiiAELEi — Sanscrit ! 

Patterson — You can't understand at first, but wait- 



Blake {Breaks in) — ^Isn't he superb? Doesn't allow a fellow to 
love what she seems, only what she doesn't seem. Kecoveredl 
Proceed. Can stand another stanza now. 

Patteeson {Beads) — 

If to thine eye my spirit glow 

Beyond the glimmer of dawn. 
Should not thy heart the bliss foreknow 
Of love through love foregone? 

BiiAKB — And that's the way you're going to win her? Instructing 

her how to refuse you? 
Patteeson — My rival, you mean. 
Blake — Ha ! Ha ! as rich as a circus. You woo a woman's astral 

body, her spook, and that flatters her real body, so you win the 

astral and the rest thrown in ! 
PATTEBSOosr — Givc the poem a chance. Hear it through — only 

three more stanzas. 
Blake — ^Mr. Mc Arthur, you can stand it? Listen closely and 

don't snore. Nudge my elbow if I do. One ! Two ! Three ! and gol 

Patteeson {Beads) — 

Never, oh, never, may I Thee 

Love, lover mine, for thou 
To Her I am, dost bend the knee — 

To her I disavow. 

Could She I am not, — ^whom I yearn 

With all my being to be, — 
Meet Thee, that shall be — should I turn 

Thus solitary from thee? 

If pKghted were They twain, and wed 

Beyond the death of us, — 
Then might even we know love — tho' dead, 

A love not blasphemous. 

95 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Blakk (Scratching his head) — Devilishly difficult! Transcen- 
dental compound of Point Loma Mysticism, Theosophy, and 
Christian Science. The blend goes to the head. What do you 
think of it? {To Mc Arthur.) 

McArthub — lA trifle Browningesqne and Meredithian ! 

Pattebson — My masters. 

Blake — Now, son of Patter, my turn. I'd let any jury of sane 
men decide if your way to domesticate a Hebe is up to mine. 
That ridge yonder, for site — a million dollar Alhambra on top — 
my open purse for your rivals, till they all have to retire grace- 
fully and yield the prize; or look in her eyes like — ^well, get 
me a simile ! 

Patteeson — ^But that's no new trick. 

Blake — I've made up my mind not to tell you, till you're desperate 
about yours: Courting my lady's soul (She doesn't know — but 
you, lynx-eyed, know she has) — ^with the soul (you modestly 
don't know, but she, inspired, knows you have) until the psycho- 
logical moment arrives — ^you swap knowledge, and whoop up in 
a chariot of fire, and the volcano performs, and the earth has a 
jag on, and the whole ocean roars up in smoke and swallows the 
sun, moon and stars ! ! 

Patterson — ^Ha ! Ha ! Blake ! Never laughed like this since the 
Hamadryad ? 

Scene 7 

{Re-enters Edith, agitated, signifies to McArthur that the dancer 
is Laura.) 

McArthue — Did you see her ? 
Edith — ^Yes. 
Blake — ^Venture to say she never deigned to look at you. Has 

eyes only for her manager — that's business — and for the trans- 

lunary press-agent-lover here I 
Edith — You are right — she didn't have time, for me. 
Blake — Can anybody enter into competition with a poetic genius 

96 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



who, when he looks at a woman, looks through her to the bird 
of paradise shaking its wings for a flight? 

Patterson — Mocking my poem makes you poetical. 

Blake — ^Dear me! A catching disease! Would you interfere 
with a man's standing? Poets, preachers and professors aren't 
altogether one's social equals out here 

Patteeson (Piqued) — Aren't they in the Bohemian Club? 

Blake {Brolly) — Honorary members to be sure; but the real mem- 
bers are the audience for the benefit of which the trained 
monkeys perform. What saves you — gives you caste — is you're 
a press agent for an artiste. 

Patterson — Well — and that new trick of yours — to win a woman ? 

Blake — Thought better of it. Can't tell you yet. What would 
you suggest as the best method, Mrs. McArthur? 

Edith — Offer straightforward comradeship and partnership. 

Patterson — ^Without the gallant garnitures of chivalry? 

Blake — No fairy tale *Tiappy ever after" nonsense, Mrs. Mc- 
Arthur ? 

Edith — With "fair play" instead. 

Blake — Humph! No woman's really modem, unless she has to 
be; just as nobody's poor for fun. Now my idea is — 'A woman 
wants two things — a business manager and a lover, and if she 
can telescope them into one person, she's got heaven on earth. 

Edith — Nothing like bachelors for theories. 

Blake {With good humor) — ^Woidd you refuse them the theories, 
as well as the ladies ? 

Scene 8 

{Enter Richard Walter and Helen.) 

Blake (With gallantry) — ^Ah, at last; The moon has risen! 

Patterson — Followed by one star ! 

Blake (Still gallant) — The waters of my soul respond to your 
attraction, and glisten for joy at your coming — even in the 
company of my dangerous rival. You know his friends ? 

97 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Helen — i*m not certain I have the honor. 

Walter (Introduces) — Mrs. McArthur. 

Helen (With stiff recognition) — Your former stenographer. 

Walter — Mr. McArthur. 

Helen — ^You've often spoken of him — a sort of factotum of yours? 

Walter (Irritated) — My friend. 

Edith (Angry) — ^I think I remember you — ^the person who wanted 

a ready made palace built for a free woman. I see you have 

changed. 

Helen — ^My views only. 

Blake — Mr. Patterson, I believe you know well — ^professor of scien- 
tifico-mystic courting — a new art. Please teach him your 
theory of the infallible method. 

Helen — There's none. So many women — so many ways. 

Blake — Well, give us the best in your opinion. Walter wants to 

know it. 
Helen — ^Let me see. Not to be in love with the lady at all. 
Blake — Or at least not to let the infection appear? 
Helen — ^Be absorbed in great plans. 
Blake (To Walter)— ^Ait\ 

Walter (To BlaTce) — 'Morning Star laundry Syndicate! 
Helen — Let the man draw her into his gigantic dreams. 
Blake (To Walter) — An Alhambral 
Walter (To Blake) — The fortune it will cost! 
Helen — Make her desire to control the power that creates and 

controls and realizes the dreams. 
Walter — Thaf s you, Blake. 

Blake — Me? Eh? Bless my soul! The description tallies. I 
look like materialized dreams! (Seats Helen) Now I have 
an advantage for once over you, Walter ! (Leans over, giving in- 
structions to invisible orchestra) Just a few of the opening 
bars. (To Helen) Orchestra is properly hidden, mere musi- 

98 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



cians you know. (To musicians) Stop, please, when I lift my 
hand. {Walter rises furious. Blake lifts his hand. Music 
stops.) 

Walteh — Is that what this dancer is to illustrate? 

Blaze — ^Don't be huffy. Ifs weU meant. 

Walter — ^My music needs interpreting with bare arms and legs 
in contortions? 

Blake — ^You're just giving yourself away. When you publish a 
symphony anonymously, you can't have personal rights re- 
spected then, you dunderhead. You of course imderstand your 
score — but we don't. Sit down and watch us trying to interpret 
the cryptic symbolism. 

Helen — Mr, Blake couldn't have procured me a greater pleasure 
than by having your music interpreted for me. 

Walter (Sharply) — I remember Japanese prints had once to be 
translated into fiddle language, and now, music has to be trans- 
posed into new-fangled acrobatics. 

Patteesok {Bises indignantly) — ^You owe Miss Alden an apology. 

Blake — Patterson, put cocaine on that exposed nerve ! Our friend 
Walter hasn't the immeasurable bliss of tagging after your star 
all over the map, writing eulogies, prose and verse in her honor 
— so he can't rightly appreciate her scintillations in absentia. 

Helen — ^Entirely innocent of malign intentions. 

Patterson (Besigned) — I am glad you answer for him or I'm 
afraid he'd have to answer to me. 

Blake — ^Double-barrelled shot guns at three paces! 

Walter — My dear sir, I have never heard of Miss Alden before 
and won't permit my eyes to desecrate the person who deigns 
to consecrate my fancies with her muscular evolutions and 
convolutions. 

Blake — There's a handsome apology, my boy. (Patterson is molli- 
fied) And it does you both credit. (To Walter) Only I just 
dare you to look away. Woman kaleidoscope — every shake an- 
other rapture ! If you don't succumb 

99 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Helen {Half aside to Blahe) — This then was your motive? 

Patteeson — lis this your new device? 

Blake (Testily) — Vanity of vanities! Of course. Can an archi- 
tect turned composer resist the artiste who interprets his sym- 
phony ? Bah ! No charge to you, Patterson. 

Walters — It seems to be at my expense. 

Blake — You see, this fantastic literary youth has a theory that 
real love isn't between a person and a person, but on the upper 
levels between the superperson of the one and the superperson 
of the other — ^by wireless — and the persons get along superbly 
on the ground when the spiritual doubles up aloft rock rain- 
bows for hobby horses in time. 

Waltee (To Patterson) — I congratulate you; there's truth in 

your theory. 
Helen {Provoked) — 'Moonshine! 
MoAkthur — 'We're on the earth. 
Edith — ^In the present tense. 
Patterson — Anyway, if s m y moonshine. 
Walter — ^Reflected from what sun? 
Patterson — Thaf s my secret. 
Mc Arthur — A private limiinary? 

Blake {Laughing) — An open secret! You see I told you — two 
of a kind — one lunatic understands and hates another. If Paf s 
theory, in the abstract, takes Walter by the hair of his head, 
what'U Pat's queen of the sylphs do in the concrete? {Half 
aside to Walter) And then you see, Walter, she's mine by rever- 
sion. {To Helen, unperturbed) I'll propose again! 

Helen — Don't, because I'd have to refuse. 

Blake — For the twentieth time? Then the twenty-first will be 
lucky. 

Walter {Bitterly) — As lucky as the previous score. 

Helen — ^You're not flattering. 

100 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Walter — iWhy should I feign and fawn and sidle? Am I at the 
court of Louis Quatorze? The only real person is the sub- 
stantial, the tangible? WeU, I'm afraid of all such persons. 
We're in the present tense? Well, it bores me. We don't love 
ahead of where we stand — in the remote — the possible — the ideal ? 
And here, here where we stand, we are to love — what, pray? 

Blake — ^A truce! Let's resume the merry war after I give the 
signal. 

Scene 9 

(As soon as the music strikes up, M^alter looTcs tetween his hnees 
in sombre mood. Appearance of dancer, invisible to audience, 
announced by ocular interest and pleasure of faces. By degrees 
the pleasure becomes rapt — Helen childishly delighted almost to 
mimicry of the dance. Blake alone remains detached, watching his 
little group and the dancer by rapid shifts, evidently egotistically 
moved with pride at being financial backer and producer of the 
incantation. He constantly glowers at Walter, shaking his head 
in remonstrance.) 

McArthur {Unconsciously breaks in) — ^Beautiful! Beautiful! 
(Walter looks up — then, curious and contemptuous, watches — 
then becomes interested — leans forward fascinated.) 

Blake — Good! Good! (Grunts approbation of Walter.) 

(Walter recognizes Laura — Horror and further fascination — 
Attempts to rise — Controls his violent agitation. Blake nudges 
Helen. She observes uneasily — her pleasure evidently ceases. 
Blake's satisfaction broader than ever — rubs his hands and 
bubbles with malicious glee.) 

Vattehson (As the music ceases) — Olympian! Orphic! (No one 
heeds him.) 

McArthue — Music of the gods ! 

Blake — ^Interpreted by a goddess, Walter. 

Patterson — I congratulate myself on having recognized genius in 
its germinant stage. 

101 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Waltee {Bises to his feet, dazed) — ^Madman! Fool! 
Pattebson — fYou mean me? 
Walter — ^You ? No. 

Pattebson — ^I am so relieved. Wasn't she a seraphic enchant- 
ment? {Exit.) 

Helen (To Walter) —Who is this Adeline Alden? 

Blakti — A witch. A midocean moonrise. A kaleidoscope. An 
aurora borealis. A tropic star shower. (Exeunt Edith and 
McArthur strolling to right.) 

Helen {To Walter) — ^A newly discovered affinity? 

Walter {Sarcastically) — 'With me, an unsuccessful role of yours. 

Helen — ^You insinuate ? 

Wam'eb — Nothing at all. 

Helen — ^You have met her before? 

Walter' — A stranger till even now, although when I composed that 
movement of joy, I must have divined her. 

Blake — ^Didn't I teU you an artist is a bom lunatic? He loves 
best, you see, what he gets out of his inner consciousness. 
Fatal recognitions apt to occur at any moment. 

Helen — ^You seem to get a deal of brutal gladness out of it, sir. 

Blake — ^Why shouldn't I? Discomfiture of the romantic, of 
artists' hallucinations. See-Saw, Marjory Daw I Bopeep has 
lost her sheep. You know a woman, and then you don't — ^you 
don't and then you do ! 

Helen {The suspicion dawning — to Blake) What do you 
k n o w, sir ? 

Blake — Only that Patterson came to me for the hard cash to 
start this celestial nymph making the country crazy, and I 
agreed, provided she'd perform on the coast for my friends first 
to the especial music of our anonymous genius. 

Walteir {Turns to Blake) — ^You knew then who she is? 

Blakb — ^Haven't the least idea now! 

103 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Helen (The new light suddenly dawning at Walter's query to 
Blake) — ^Is that woman your wife? 

Wai/ter — No ! I have no wife ! 

Helen — ^But she was? 

Walter — Not she. Never! And by what right, pray, do you 
subject me to your interrogatory? 

Hel^n — That given me by your protestations. 

Walter — Oratitude, Madam. I protest ' 

Helen — And I want the truth. 

Walter {Starts to withdraw) — ^If you press me, you shall have it. 

Helen — ^Walter, don't equivocate. I can't endure the suspense. 

Walter (Turns on her with a strange anger at himself which 
seems rage at her and has moments of lucid perception of the 
crossed wires) — Because in a dark hour you offered your good 
fellowship, and I accepted — ^you encouraged me and distracted 
me as a clever kind woman only can, does that give you a title 
deed to my soul? 

Blake — ^I tell you it's his own music, not the witch, body-snatched 
him! It wouldn't have been the same to any other music. 
Confess ! 

Walter (Almost harhs at Blake) — No, you fool! 

Blake (Laughs) — Thanks, lunatic! Didn't I say so? Vanity of 
vanities ! 

Helen (To Walter) — I want to hear in plain speech what you 
know of this woman. 

Walter — Nothing! The more is the pity! When my spirit 
was broken, my life adrift, you persuaded me to return to my 
boyhood love — to Music. Architecture then ceased being a 
religion, and fell to the rank of a lucrative trade. Blake, like a 
good fellow, helped me get on my own feet. Does all this give 
him and you, I repeat, a mortgage on my immortal soul? I 
mistakenly broke sacred ties for freedom; do you think that 
to enter into a worse bondage I should desecrate — open to the 
vulgar gaze — my inmost being? 

103 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Blake — That's fine. According to programme. Do it handsomely, 
man. Don't forget she's paid you the signal compliment — she's 
never paid me — jealousy ! 

•Helen — Old idiot! 

Blaxe — ^But then, you don't get such little love words shot at 
you. Keep your temper, sweet. If you are vexed at yourself, 
thaf s what all people of sense are. Not vexed at you — of course 
they don't trouble themselves about you — ^but each at his own 
damned fool self. Oh, you're not peculiar. So don't you turn 
the fire hose of your rage on us, who are not burning just now! 
And you, Miss Dameill, stop poking your parasol into the crater 
of a live volcano to stir it up. 
(Helen contemptuously ignores him.) (Walter turns to go.) 

Helen — .Walter, stop. 

Blaise — ^You needn't insult me — ^you're mine by reversion — on the 
rebound, you know. 

Helen — ^Walter, for the last time, answer just one question ; Was 
that woman your wife ? 

Waltee (Bitterly) — ^Would I have left her? 

Helen — You evade me. 

Walter — How about wearying of a single note? Does that argue 
polygamy? Or the need rather of a various individual? 

Blake — Eight you are. A vaudeville show. 

Wai/ter — ^What about response to fresh elements — caused by what, 
once old, has become new ? Besides, does one love, madam, by a 
book of tactics : shoulder arms, carry arms, ground arms ? (Exit 
"brusquely as Mc Arthur and Edith re-enter.) 

Helen (To McArthur) — He is mad. Mr. Walter refuses to an- 
swer whether he ever knew before this dancer. 

McArthue — Perhaps my friend Walter is mad, as you say. But 
that woman, who danced, none of us ever really knew before. 

Edith: — ^I predicted her. 

McArthur — But never had the definite prevision 

Edith — Neither had you 

104 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



MoArtbxtr — How about direct vision ? 

(Edith is perturbed. LooTcs steadily at him — and then with- 
draws rapidly with a reproachful ^ 

Edith — Arthur ! 

MoArthur {Calling her) — Edith! {Follows her.) 

Blake — Their turn now. Smitten by the queen of the sirens. 
{Chuclcles.) 

Helen {Turns on Blake) — ^AH this you prepared on purpose? 

Blake {Laughing good-naturedly) — The charge falls to the ground 
of its dead weight ! Had I known Miss to be Walter's ex- 
wife, would I have presumed there could be the desired danger 
for him in the spectacle of h e r dance ? But you have had your 
demonstration cheap. So hurry up your twentieth refusal, 
so that I can make my twenty-first and final proposal. The 
house is yours and all the appurtenances thereof — as Walter 
would say. 

{Helen looTcs at BlaTce -first angrily, then soterly, then curiously.) 

Helen — You schemed all this for me? 

Blake — Pshaw ! Child's play ! 

Helen — And suppose I disappoint you ? 

Blake {Drolly) — You couldn't in the usual way. 

Helen — Well, by accepting you then. 

Blake {Nearly collapsed) — ^Helen! 

Helen — No heart failures yet — ^till you've heard the conditions. 
Walter must build the house. How'U you manage that ? 

Blake — Easy. Put him under new obligations. (7s overjoyed) 
Detain the Prima Donna and her poet-beau. They are invited 
for the night. Automobile conveniently out of order. Hal 

rU find a way! After aU. To think of it! After aUI 

Ha! Ha! 

105 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Scene 10 

(Enter Laura (Adeline Alden) led by Patterson. Blake starts 
to follow Walter. Stops.) 

Blake — Ha! Congratulations, Miss Alden! The Muse Terpsi- 
chore is jealous. What an artist would call an "inspiration." 

Lauka — The music is responsible. It set my soul free, and I owe 
my acquaintance with it to you, sir. Who is the composer ? 

Blake — A threefold mystery — Jones, Smith, Brown in one. (Exit 
laughing.) 

McAkthuk — ^You are mistress of a noble art. 

Laura — I thank you. What ! It's you, Arthur ! And you, Edith, 
too ! (Embraces her) I am not ashamed to meet you again now. 

Edith — ^You were very cruel to keep away from us so long. 

Laura — I feared to lose my courage. And this lady for whose 
delectation I was engaged to dance? 

Helen — ^You would hardly remember Helen Dameill? 

Laura — ^Unfortunately, I have not been allowed to forget her. 

Helen" — ^You couldn't reveal professional secrets to me then? I 
was no innocent. Esoteric mysteries you shared with the artist 
alone ! 

Laura — Miss Dameill, let us not be bitter. I at least owe you 
thanks. You opened the door of my prison house. 

Helen — Ha I Ha ! And I'U furnish you with ground plan, eleva- 
tions and incidental cross sections of the warden that was. If 
he claims you by reversion, though we've improved him greatly, 
out here (you can believe me, who had the main part of the un- 
dertaking), you will owe me for teaching the bear late in life 
how to dance to a woman's whistling. (To Blake, returning 
with Walter) ^a.\ You've brought the artist at last ! (Turning 
to Walter) who'll build for me that house for a free spirit — for 
the woman I'm going to be, (Turning to Blake) thanks to my 
lord and master. 

106 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Walter — Pardon me — no ; but for Blake's sake — I forgot, I must 
first congratulate you. 

Hjelen {To Laura) — ^You see, not for my sake — he has learned 
better — poor devil! 

Laura — And A)es his teacher the honor due! {SJie turns away.) 

Helen — WeU, and what will you build for me — for Blake's sake? 

Walter — A Petit Trianon, a Moorish Mosque — any sort of bridal 
cake you want served on his gold plate. 

Helen — Ha ! Ha ! You see. Miss Avery, my mocking bird is ready 
to pipe any tune now. So grateful to see the blackbird on his 
perch to be, in the golden cage ! 

Blake — Blackbird ! First dividend ! Eh ? Bridal cake. my dear 
Miss Alden, don't depart m high dudgeon because the empress 
makes merry. As for the automobile — if s broken down. 

Laura — Mr. Patterson will telephone to the city. {Exit Pat- 
terson.) 

Blake — Wireless of his own instantaneous installing 

Laura — ^But you promised me 

Blake — Automobiles and telephones are a law unto themselves. 
Hours of repair work, I assure you. 

Lau^a — I will wait. 

Blake — ^You would better be my guests for the night. 

Helen — Having done myself the distinguished honor to accept 
Mr. Blake's offer of hand and heart 

Blake — And Alhambra. 

Helen — May I anticipate my delight as your hostess to be ? 

Walter {To Laura) — ^I must see you. 

Laura — Have you not already seen me ? 

Walter — For that very reason you cannot surely refuse me an 
interview. 

107 



BEYOND DISILLUSION" 



Lauea — Have you plotted this unsportsmanlike manoeuvre? 

Blake (Retiring with Helen) — 'Tisn't he, poor devil (laughing) 

who limed the twigs. 
Waltee — Little did I dream that the famous dancer was the 

woman whose art impulse I thoughtlessly sacrificed. 

Scene 11 
(Helen, at Blake's dumbshow speech, withdraws within.) 

Waltee — ^Yes, blind that I was, I have seen y o u at last ! 

Laura — And what am I, but a patient copyist of the old Greek 
vases? — ^reviver, after long brooding, of bygone emotions? — ^One 
who abandons the body to be possessed of the god. 

Waltee — Whom you invoke by the incantation of a few bars ! 

Laura — Whom you have also denied ! 

Walter — ^Let a repentant fellow-worshipper wish you joy — ^great 
joy of your victorious quest. (Offers his hand.) 

Laura — ^I thank you from my heart. 

Walter — ^And I — God knows — Words fail me! 

Laura — ^Better so ! 

Walter — ^You cannot understand what drafts of bliss I have 
drunk to-night. 

Laura — Of the fountain of youth? 

Walter — I am not merely captivated, enraptured, I am for- 
ever yours. 

Laura — Alas ! Comrade of old days ! 

Walter — And of days to come ! 

Laura — Never! I warred against your art — thank heaven I was 
defeated — ^but I can never forgive you. 

Walter (Smiling) — That I forsook my ideals? 

Laura — For success! 

Walter (Smiling) — ^At another woman's bidding than yours? 

Laura — Not that you feU — for I owe all to that. 

108 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Walter — That I was tempted ? 

Laura — ^Yes, Eichard. I can never forgive you that. 

Walter — Beware, Laura, beloved, lest you misjudge me now — ^by 
appearances. 

Laura — I cannot judge you. I can only see what you have done. 
Denied your ideals! 

Walter — Those I once cherished? But what of the half gods go- 
ing — that the greater gods may come? What if loyalty to the 
new, elder than the old, involved disloyalty to the outworn? 

Laura — Do you think you will deceive me as easily as yourself? 
You that were flint-hearted for the truth's sake — have been 
melting wax in a worldly siren's smile! God — ^that you could 
barter away your soul just as I was winning mine ! 

Scene 12 

{Enter Patterson.) 
Patterson — I gather you were formerly Miss Alden's husband? 
Walter — From her description? 
Patterson — That of a man who could have failed her — would 

hardly have interested me. 
Walter — But one whom perchance she still loved? 
Laura — Eichard ! 
Patterson — Don't answer him. The woman whom I know, you 

never saw. 
Walter — True ! But are you certain you do not now deceive 

yourself as I did once ? Besides, do you know a girl who danced 

on a rock over a sheer abyss among blooming laurel to the fiddle 

of a moonstruck boy? 

Laura — ^Would to God you were he again ! 

Patterson — I love the woman, who involves and includes her 
past. Whatever thereof was alive, lives in her. At least I never 
deserted her. I will escort her to the city. Blake and you have 

109 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



conspired in vain to keep her your prisoner over night. She 
shall be protected by me, sir, from distressing memories. 

Waltee (Ironically) — ^Which are not Her SELF? 

Patteeson — I claim to be the first man who has really conceived 
the divine passion — which scares back into the night all spectres 
of right and wrong. 

Walter — Fortunate youth, despiser of the past. Her past — is 
to-day yours? — And to-morrow? 

Patteeson — Love has exalted me beyond time and space. 

Waltee — ^Initiated you into the Fourth Dimension! 

Patterson — At least given me the gift of the seership hitherto 
unsuspected. You, the haunting threat, the past, to bestride her 
path — ^I confronted you for her, before I knew you ! Picture 
lover to some purpose. 

Wai/tbe — ^You have exploited the situation, poet. I accept 
your appeal — if you have read truly — ^if you have foreseen her 
use of the divine word 

Patterson (Reads with increasing tremor of enthusiasm) — 

"Oh, lover, if thou love my soul 
Deeper than twilight dream. 
How can'st thou more than pity dole 
To her — woe's me — I seem? 

"If to thine eye my spirit glow, 
Beyond the glimmer of davm, 
i Should not thy heart the bliss forekno\» 

: Of love — through love — foregone ? 



^Never, oh, never, may I Thee 
Love, lover mine; for thou 

To her I am dost bend the knee. 
To her I disavow. 

110 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



"Could She I am not, whom I yearn 

With all my being to be, — 
Meet Thee that shall be — should I turn 
Thus solitary from thee? 

"If plighted were They twain — and wed 
Beyond the death of ns, — 
Then might even we know love — tho' dead, 
A love not blasphemous.'' 

Walter — I bear yon witness — ^truly an inspired poem. I approve 
every line of it, and yet I claim you, Laura. 

Laura {Reaching for the poem) — ^Your verses. Poet! What I 
have felt, they express. Kichard, they are my answer to you. 

Waijter — And shaU this vain stripling witness my shame — 
ours rather — we lovers once — betrothed — married — father 
and mother of the selfsame children? Will you marry this 
clever juggler? 

Laura — No. I quote his lines against himself also. {Patterson is 
dumlfounded. His hurt vanity and astonishment wilt him,) 

Patterson — ^Me? You reject me? For one who was deaf long 
years and blind? Who mistreated you? Ungrateful! Mad- 
woman! 

Laura {Pityingly) — ^What do you know, my dear boy, of man and 
wife? You have seen — ^not felt; you have written, not lived! 
Has he sinned? So have I. You, sinless, can only judge. 
Leave me to protect myseK against Mr. Walter — as I have pro- 
tected myself against you. 

Patterson — My best revenge is to obey you — ^I leave the field to 
you, sir — ^but only for the moment. {LooTcs at Walter with an 
almost comical fury — exit.) 

Laura — To return misogynist, with a satire in his pocket— Poor 
silly boy. 

Ill 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



SCENEl 13 

WiJiTER — ^You need weapons against me? What harm could I 
now do, having beheld your very Self ? 

Laura — None — because I still behold what once you were. 

Walteb — An Ideal — ^place it back or forward — is an infidelity to 
any man. Flesh and blood cannot realize our dreams. But in 
us are many persons. You remember, I once told you, we want 
progress for jaded senses; Change — the unforeseen aspect of the 
manifold for our curiosity — but loyalty also for our inmost spirifs 
sake ? Self identical, we demand our ideal's self identity ! You 
are she for me with whom no ideal would compete. It would 
fade to the pale ghost of one vain mood's projection. 

Lauba — It is too late. Charge me with untruth if you dare — I 
love 

Walter — ^What man? 

Lauba — None you know 

Walteb, — 'Whom you have met ? 

Laura — Never, though I know him. 

Walter — ^Delusion ! 

Laura — He freed me. I was, when I felt his magical touch, de- 
livered forever from bondage — No obsession dominated my will. 
But — it was he who unlocked the creative depths in me for 
the first time; caught up and transfused the painfully acquired 
technique with a compelling inspiration. 

Walter — And who, pray, did this ? I have a right to know. 

Laura — He spoke what was in me to express. 

Walter — ^A teacher? 

Laura — "Ay! And more. He was as God to me. 

Walter — His name? 

Laura — ^I dared not inquire. Dionysus sufiiced for the spirifs 

worship. 
Walter (Greatly agitated) — Don't tantalize a desperate man. I 

gave yon up for art. Then art deserted me, and I hated her! 

112 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Helen put me, without realizing it, under heavy obligations. 
She cheered me — urged me to use my skill on lower planes and 
to save my soul, if such I had, in religion, in poetry, in music ! 
The force of her assiduous pursuit amused, flattered, touched 
the senses, all the more that she made no demands of the spirit. 
I found a holy secret place whither my true self retreated. And 
your dance to-night proved to me that I am freer than 
ever I was. Who is this anonymous wonder-worker? A clue 
to him, that I may challenge him — outbid him, spiritually — ^be- 
come the only man for you, as you are the only woman for me. 

Lauka — I could almost wish it were possible. Have we not suf- 
fered at each other's hands? Have we not common memories? 
Foolish lovers once 

Walter — And never again? Wiser? Saner? More worshipful? 

Latjea — ^I fear not. I am as one plighted — ^nay, wed already ; and 
though he knows it not, when I danced to-night we were made 
sacramentally one. 

Walter — ^To-night? (A sudden insight) The man whose music 
you danced? 

Laura — Oh, Eichard! (Walter drops on his hnees to Laura,) 

Walter — ^Forgive me, that I made the music for her I longed 
to know — challenging God's omnipotence to create her for me 
in some future world — and here you are — she! 

Laura {All hut faint for joy) — ^You! You! The music yours? 

Walter — Thank heaven! See, dearest. Belted Orion hath un- 
sheathed his sword! Loyal henceforth I swear to be, though 
we realize not in this life or ever — ^that vision. Loyal to my 
vision of you. 

Laura — And you, then, have loved me "Deeper than twilight 
dream" ? 

Walter — ''Beyond the glimmer of dawn." 

Laura — Adoration for what is to be? 

Walter — And passionate, tender kindness to what in part exists. 

Laura — Joy and awe, under the fading stars. 

113 



BEYOND DISILLUSION 



Waxter — ^Replighted, darling, in this our first marriage, wide 

awake — as two immortal beings. 
Laura — Oh, God, the shame! 
Waltee — Mine. Altogether. 

Lauea — No — that it should have needed in our case — a miracle 

Walter — To create the condition of a divine love? 

Laura — ^But others shall need no miracle ! Some day, aU shall 

understand. 
Walter — The mystery of self within self ? Depths below depths ? 

Sphere above sphere? 
Laura — And the children of our "sleep-walking'^ marriage. 
Walter — ^We shaU give them the new birth into the kingdom 

of love. 

(The moon sets in the Golden Gate and the stars brighten, as 

the lovers look in perfect silence. A mist creeps along the ground 

between the trees — gradually rising, veils them — The curtain 

slowly falls.) 



114 



AFTEEWORD 
Via Cordis Via Crucis 

I. Youth's Auguries 

Only-beloved, these golden days: — 

Now — ^yearnings vague, divine disquietude, 
elusive, visionary, many-hued 

hopes, that forevermore the heart essays, 

up dim meandering enchanted ways, 
to overtake; Now — palpitant solitude, 
where youth her spirit shy would fain seclude 

in doubt, hushed rapture, tremour and amaze. 

Yet, Each foreknew (though fancy-free, heart-whole) 
how friend must pass and sweetest comrade fail, 

imagination fade and passion thwart, 
and th' freedom nowise of our quest avail — 
save they conjoin, should man and maid consort 
(dear fellow-farers) to one common goal ! 

II. Obsession 

But who, (sweethearts in wayward discontent, 
in hunger mystical and thirst) would dare 
on such all-hallowed pilgrunage to fare, — 

and dread not, after, in anguish to repent 

the passionate urgency irreverent 

that wooed Her with his need her wealth to share, 
dream to forego, adventure to forbear — 

destined, if on her lonely ways she went? 

Yea, (if even for aU her womanhood sweet and strong, 
her answer pure to love's most holy wants, 
fortitude, divination, and swift response 
heart-sensitive to heavenly presences) 
some day Thou cry not: — ^^Clear, too clear it is 
ne'er can my ultimate self to Thee belong." 

115 



AFTEEWOED 



III. The Goedia2^ Knot 

Ah, Truth shall in such consecrated Twain 
unveil her glowing shame and piteous sore 
for loves' sake, so th' inviolate Troth they swore 

have naught to fear; and yet, shall they refrain 

from pity that belittleth and disdain; 

rather, with mutual Eeverence heal, restore — ' 
creating divine beauty to adore, — 

till th' innocency of Eden both regain. 

Who shall in the petty round his heart assure 
of staid forbearance, homely faithfulness, — 

yet also, at need, irradiant surprise? 
achieve a valiant self -hood, — yet no less 
(foregoing glorious whim, fantastic lure) 
all rebel selves, in secret, sacrifice? 

IV, The Sword Stroke 

■What shall to th' spirit its extreme blisses grant 
as, — ever, th' quickening pulse and thrill of growth : 

to reach, expansive, wresting from the loth 

stark elements their nurture ministrant 

for toppling bloom and fruit? or, calm, to plant 
the mail'd heel archangelic on behemoth 
and spewing leviathan? or, heavenly-wroth, 

like solar photosphere leap, blaze and pant? 

But marsh-fog stole, ere from youth's dream we woke, 
environing us with th' morbid, dismal, void. 
Dull, ineffective, craven paralysis! 
Who would not rather, for bygone hope enjoyed, 
leap into th' ice-fang'd horror of the abyss, — 

than blinded grope, cringe, stifle, whine and choke? 



116 



AFTEEWORD 



V. Self Evocation 

Whose deity invoke but Love's, by whom 

to smnmoii from vasty legions uncreate 

even now that Self: — an Arm to reinstate, 
sword-brandishing, my soul, risen from the tomb 
disherited, on her throne? Or, the storm-gloom 

riven through, a Star with unquenchable life elate 

singing God's firmament above man's fate : 
for myriad conquering spirits — infinite room? 
Or, from beetling cloud-refulgent peak of ice 

in th' dazzle of sky, to draw the crystal thread 
by lightning loop and hither-thither rash 
from level to level, (leaving lakes that flash 

sky-lucent), till, behold, the waste lands dead 
brood, green, and bloom — an earthly Paradise? 

VI. Love's Thaumatuegt 

Then Love, Love, we hail thee, (even we!) 
who spakest again the fiat else unheard — 
and Light was, ay, and Eight; and undeterred 

the feeble stood, nor bent to Baal the knee ! 

Who didst, when Spring lavished her all, decree 
flower-wreaths, that Summer and Autumn crown and gird 
their children for far journeying, long deferred, 

to violet skylines over land and sea. 

Who, when the famine fell upon us sore, 
feddest with faith from thine imfailing store, 
didst pour royal anointing from thy cruse, 
ay, sweet repose miraculous, and delight; 
and the barren spumy sea of death — suffuse 
with after-glows that earth and heaven unite ! 



117 



AFTERWORD 



VII. Love's Theuegy 

Yet, Love, thy greater wonders who may laud? 

When th' earth a lurid shell roU'd, fire-crevass'd ? 

When into the hoar gloaming stretch'd man's past 
his futile aeons of ruin? When, deep-awed, 
th' heav'ns spread for us their chemic glory abroad 
from infinitude to infinitude, till the Vast 

gulfed into nothingness, and the soul aghast 
sickened beholding th' maerocosmic fraud? 

lAh, then it was his miracle Love wrought: — 

for Thou and I drew nigher, and nigher; when lo 
of Thee and Me, withdrawn to springs of light, 
there blazed the ALL out of the nethermost naught, 
till They we are, unto God's fullness glow, — 

and one love, brimming, mount from height to height ! 




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